70 years ago the first parade in the Sala Bianca in Florence

A story that features the entrepreneurial skills of Giovanni Battista Giorgini and the unparalleled beauty of a historic room in the Pitti Palace

After World War II, Italy imposed itself as the prototype of the country of escapism and holidays. With its fairytale atmosphere of sunsets, ruins, basilicas and Mediterranean flavours, it then imposed itself in the collective imagination as the land of impossible dreams... Venice, Florence, Rome, Capri were the destinations that made the international jest set of the time dream... One thinks of films like Vacanze Romane (1953).

In those same years, Giovanni Battista Giorgini was working behind the scenes in Florence, which was soon to become the great centre of the nascent Italian fashion industry. It was he - a nobleman of Lucca origins, dedicated to exporting Italian products to the USA and Japan since the 1920s - who was the director of the famous fashion shows that from 1951 placed the names of Italian tailoring in the international spotlight. But giving echo, lustre and resonance to these extraordinary events was a very special location: the Sala Bianca in Palazzo Pitti.

The first fashion show among the mirrors and frosted stuccoes of the Sala Bianca was staged on 22 July 1952, and for the 70th anniversary of that great event, Florence remembers it with a press conference scheduled for Thursday, 21 July 2022, at 6 p.m. at Polimoda, in the presence of its president Ferruccio Ferragamo, with Raffaello Napoleone, CEO of Pitti Immagine, and Neri Fadigati, president of the Archivio Giorgini.

We, meanwhile, briefly review its history.

When, on that day seventy years ago, the doors of Palazzo Pitti's Sala Bianca were opened for the first time to the fashion shows, Italian fashion was not at its baptism, in fact it had already gained notoriety and was already considered a very interesting product.

However, 1952 remains an historic date because from that moment, the location and the collections presented there became equated with the expression White Room, as meaning Italian style. The author of this incredible adventure, the father of Italian fashion, was the genial Giovan Battista Giorgini, a business agent very much in love with his work – finding the most beautiful objects, visiting artisans’ workshops, discovering a world of techniques, creativity and manual skills and sharing an idea of elegance. A man of great charm, but above all enterprising, with an iron hand and organizational skills, he understood which would prove to be winning products, and was able to direct craftsmen to adapt their products to overseas customers.

The idea of launching Italian fashion, non-existent as far as foreign buyers and the Italians themselves were concerned, came about of its own accord. So insistent was he, that he managed to bring together in Florence some of the best dressmakers in an Italy that was longing to do business, and high-sounding American buyers, whose judgements would mean life or death.

At that time, Paris was the invulnerable capital of fashion; our Italian dressmakers spent thousands of francs to buy toiles from Dior, Balenciaga, Fath or Patou to create collections to satisfy their clients hungry for fashion-fashion (as they called it then to distinguish it from imitations). Giorgini was successful, perhaps by looking more at the business than the creative side, and starting from the premise of America’s great demand for fashion from Paris. Maybe there could be an opening for we Italians too. Giorgino had also probably pricked up his ears at the news of Emilio Pucci, Ferragamo and Gucci, who were proof of how much the American market had need of a less academic and more casual, freer fashion. So it was that following the refusal by American department store Altman to sponsor an Italian fashion show in New York, Giorgini replied that he would organize it himself in the days immediately after the Paris shows. In February 1951, at his lovely house, Villa Torrigiani in Via dei Serragli, Florence, he orchestrated the first presentation of clothes by the best-known houses (Simonetta, Fabiani, Fontana, Schuberth and Carosa di Roma, Marucelli, Veneziani, Noberasco, Vanna di Milano, Emilio Pucci, Avolio, Bertoli and Tessitrice dell’Isola), disguised as an evening dance. His bluffs were unthinkable. To the fashion houses –“some of the best ateliers have agreed to participate”. To the buyers- “if you are not going to be present, at least allow me to invite your direct competitors”. The fact is that on that blessed evening “which is aimed at promoting our fashion, so ladies are earnestly requested to wear dresses of pure Italian inspiration”, in the presence of the American market’s top names, in that neo-classical room without a runway, the splendid adventure of Italian fashion was launched. In the following years, as the event grew, new, young designers were included, an obligatory step which created even greater expectations. One of the most illustrious designers discovered by Giorgini was Roberto Capucci. Sarli, Centinaro, Baratta, Galitzine, Lancetti, Forquet, Balestra, Valentino, Mila Schon and Krizia all made their international debut in Florence. In 1965, Giorgini gave up direction of the Florence fashion shows, which continued until 1982. The White Room atmosphere was gradually dimming, haute couture moved to Rome, prêt-à-porter to Milan. Nowadays, with its district that encapsulates the best in hand-craftsmanship, the great Florentine maisons who live and work here and the undisputed cachet of Pitti Immagine Uomo, Florence has nothing to envy the past for. On the contrary, the adventure continues in splendid shape.