L'influenza del Giappone sulla moda italiana dal XVI al XX secolo

The aim of this paper is to investigate the influence of Japan on Italian fashion from the half of the XVIth century to the end of the XXth century. The first information on Japanese clothes reached Italy around 1550, after Japan was ‘discovered’ by some Portuguese sailors who arrived on Japanese coasts after a shipwreck in 1543. However, the first mild influences of Japan on Italian fashion can be seen only after the second half of the XVIIth century when Italian noblemen started wearing kimonos as night-gowns. In addition, at that time, Japanese-style patterns derived from Japanese fabrics were introduced in some Italian fabrics. But it was just at the end of the XIXth century that a sort of Japanese culture mania called Japonisme spread out in Europe and in Italy. Since fashion is a reliable mirror of its times, also Italian fashion between 1880 and 1920 experienced more than once the influence of Japanese clothing, especially of the kimono. After late XIXth century Japonisme, the second time when Italian fashion was profoundly influenced by Japan was between the Seventies and the Nineties of the XXth century. During that phase of neo-Japonisme, some Italian fashion designers such as Mila Schön and Ken Scott repeatedly drew inspiration from old Japanese clothes. Others, such as Romeo Gigli and Ennio Capasa were influenced by contemporary Japanese fashion designers such as Kenzo Takada, Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto and Rei Kawakubo who designed over-size clothes, often shapeless and asymmetrical.