Album di vestiti<\/em><\/a>. Marinella Mascia Galateria, ed. Rome: Elliot, 2015. 280 p., ill. ISBN 9788861928626. \u20ac19.50 (paperback).<\/p>\nThis volume presents for the first time in its entirety the text that Paola Masino (1908-1989), an important Italian writer, wrote between 1958 and 1963 in her private notebooks. In what the author describes as \u201cun\u2019autobiografia narrata secondo la memoria degli abiti che indossai\u201d (101), Masino evokes her life and that of the people around her through the memory of the clothes they wore. As in a metaphorical fashion show, the book captures moments and anecdotes from Masino\u2019s life. As she wanders through her past (\u201cquesto mio peregrinare per la terra della mia memoria,\u201d [101]), Album <\/em>takes us back to the Rome of her childhood and the Tuscany of her maternal grandparents (from the Sforza family). We also follow her move to Paris, at the beginning of her lifelong love for the intellectual Massimo Bontempelli (opposed by Paola\u2019s family and quite unacceptable at the time, given he was separated from his wife and 30 years older than she was). The latter episodes capture the lively intellectual scene of Paris in 1929-31 and Masino\u2019s friendship with great artists and expats. The text also bears witness to other events: her \u201cgolden exile\u201d in Venice in 1938 after Bontempelli\u2019s detachment from the fascist regime; the death of their beloved friend Luigi Pirandello; Paola\u2019s and Massimo\u2019s clandestine life hiding during the Nazi occupation of Rome in 1943; her father\u2019s and later Bontempelli\u2019s death.<\/p>\nYet events are not organized chronologically as in a traditional autobiography; as the editor Marinella Mascia Galateria aptly observes, Masino\u2019s text is comparable in its structure to a Proustian Recherche<\/em> (5). The author gives her thoughts and memories free rein (\u201cli lascio a loro piacimento avanzare sulla pagina, senza ordine e senza giustificazione,\u201d [84]); images arise, in a kaleidoscopic fashion, filled with colors and details. Album <\/em>was written at a difficult point in Masino\u2019s life, when the now mature woman felt empty and \u201cdisoccupata nel mondo\u201d (185), due to Bontempelli\u2019s illness and death as well as her fear of having exhausted her creativity. Yet through this text she manages to recapture and preserve the memory of her childhood, adolescence and youth; even though decades have passed, the various events are still alive in her memory and meaningful. Indeed, as she states, her book is \u201c[un] panorama di moda in cui si svolse la mia vita pi\u00f9 importante: quella che supera il logorio degli anni e che mi accompagna \u2013 sia pur soltanto come riflesso di colore e di suono\u201d (64). A master at visually evocative details, in a particularly vivid passage Masino imagines looking at her past self as if from a window and seeing the hats she wore as a girl clamoring to be remembered: \u201cMa una raffica di vento bonario solleva da terra [\u2026] e mi fa volteggiare d\u2019intorno quali foglie strappate dai rami i cappellini che in questo cammino a ritroso ho scordato di cogliere. Suonano e tinnano, battendo sui vetri, mi chiamano, vogliono raccontarmi i pensieri infantili che levitarono sotto le loro ali, le paure, i pudori, le gioie che mi corsero la fronte [\u2026]\u201d (78).<\/p>\nFar from being a mundane, frivolous item or distraction, clothing also becomes indicative of one\u2019s values and ideals. As the author reflects on her family\u2019s choices in relation to Italian society in the first decades of the twentieth\u00a0century and during fascism in particular, good taste could become a moral and even a political statement: \u201cera allora un tempo di imperante cattivo gusto: avere buon gusto voleva dire andare contro corrente, essere un \u2018originale\u2019 [\u2026]\u201d (112). Always a believer in the value of individuality (\u201cDiventare \u2018individui\u2019 \u00e8 lo sforzo costante degli uomini\u201d [164]), Masino discusses the negative effects of the regime\u2019s choice of imposing a uniform: \u201cChiusi i cervelli nel fez, i cuori nella camicia nera, i passi negli stivaloni, si imped\u00ec facilmente alla grande maggioranza di pensare, di sentire, di agire\u201d (164). Among those who resented the uniform, including the one required of members of the Accademia d\u2019Italia<\/em>, she remembers Pirandello and Bontempelli. The memory of the \u201cmaglioni blu da marinaio\u201d (168) that she picks out for them leads her to talk of their growing opposition to the fascist regime\u2019s taste for the ornate and the military and their final rejection of its political ideals: \u201cTanto pi\u00f9 l\u2019epoca s\u2019agghindava e sovraccaricava d\u2019orpelli falso impero, pennacchi da maresciallo [\u2026], tanto pi\u00f9 loro si spogliavano d\u2019ogni abito borghese, d\u2019ogni divagazione\u201d (169).<\/p>\nAs Masino writes in Album<\/em>, \u201cVeder chiaro \u00e8 sempre stato il mio difetto; e la mia colpa, dire quel che vedevo\u201d (210). It is a sentence that encapsulates the author\u2019s innate ability to critically examine reality and her unrelenting courage to speak up in her life and works, even in times of political turmoil or dictatorship. As readers of Masino know, her unforgiving views on society, the family and the regime made her the object of critique and censorship, as was the case for her novels Periferia <\/em>(1933) and Nascita e morte della massaia <\/em>(first published in Tempo<\/em> in 1941-42 and in volume in 1945), a parody of fascism. While critics and censors probably considered this trait a defect or fault, it is this very ability to see, question and speak up that allowed her to stand out in times of conformity and fear. The garments and accessories worn by her become symptomatic of her own originality, rooted in her family\u2019s desire to be unique, tasteful and thrifty. Thus she recounts how she decorated her boring high-school uniform with quotes from her favorite books, giving rise to the ironic remarks of one of her professors: \u201c\u2018Ma quant\u2019\u00e8 istruita\u2019\u201d (149). Talking of her unusual evening gowns, she sets a parallel between creation in art\/writing and her own fashion choices: \u201cLa bellezza dell\u2019arte, il piacere dello scrivere sta tutto nell\u2019inventare. Cos\u00ec io mi ricordo i miei abiti da sera come \u2018invenzioni\u2019\u201d (84). This will not come as a surprise to readers and scholars of Masino, a writer skilled at creating fantastic and inventive scenarios. Never a conformist in her writing, this trait also appears in her personal choices as recounted in Album<\/em>; writing about her first evening gown, made of pink taffetas, <\/em>she recalls an evening spent with Bontempelli when, having been asked to dance by Guido Cristini, president of the fascist Special Tribunal, the young Paola responds: \u201c\u2018Non ballo con gli assassini\u2019\u201d (83). She also describes the shock of the regime\u2019s minister Giuseppe Bottai upon seeing the necklace made out of ivy that Masino used to decorate her dress for an event organized in his honor at the Italian embassy in Paris. To Bottai\u2019s comment \u201c\u2018Che coraggio, a portare una collana di tal fatta\u2019\u201d, a 22-year old Paola replies: \u201c\u2018Perch\u00e9? Le altre donne non portano pietre al collo? Pietre o foglie non sono tutti prodotti della natura?\u2019\u201d (218). In short, an acute, outspoken observer of life and culture in Italy (and abroad) before, during and after fascism; this very same sincerity and anti-conformist attitude permeate all her novels and short stories.<\/p>\nAlways humble, Masino does not flaunt her past creative achievements; only a couple of passing references to her published work appear in Album<\/em>, as when she describes the beautiful tailleur<\/em> (by the famous designer Biki) she was given by her publisher Mondadori in recognition for her novel Nascita<\/em>. While her literary production is not at the center of Album, <\/em>this is an extraordinary volume for scholars and readers of Masino. Indeed, as the editor states, the book reveals \u201cil profondo nesso tra autobiografia e opera della scrittrice, sempre accuramente celato\u201d (23). Indeed scenes, characters, and her family background give us a glimpse into her world, one that informs her works yet is transfigured by Masino\u2019s unique style, where reality, fantasy, the surreal, the magical, parody and the grotesque often coexist.<\/p>\nThe volume, entirely in Italian, includes a detailed and exhaustive introduction by the editor Mascia Galateria who offers an overview of Album <\/em>and positions it in relation to the writer\u2019s life, production, interest in fashion and in fashion writing. The in-depth introduction is followed by the integral version of Album<\/em>; detailed endnotes provide useful information relative to the characters and events that appear in the text. The volume concludes with an appendix containing photos, drawings of or by Masino and portraits of the author.<\/p>\nAlbum<\/em> is a true gem for readers of all backgrounds, never dull but witty and vibrant in its details, episodes and characters. It is a volume that could lend itself to being utilized in undergraduate and graduate courses on the history of fashion in Italy, on twentieth-century Italian culture and literature, as well as more specific courses dealing with twentieth-century Italian women and\/or women writers, their lives and\/or writings, and Masino\u2019s production in particular.<\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Tristana Rorandelli
\nSarah Lawrence College<\/em><\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Paola Masino. Album di vestiti. Marinella Mascia Galateria, ed. Rome: Elliot, 2015. 280 p., ill. ISBN 9788861928626. \u20ac19.50 (paperback). This volume presents for the first time in its entirety the text that Paola Masino (1908-1989), an important Italian writer, wrote between 1958 and 1963 in her private notebooks. In what the author describes as \u201cun\u2019autobiografia […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1888],"tags":[1930],"class_list":["post-1163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-review","tag-europe"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1163"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1226,"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1163\/revisions\/1226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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