ABSTRACT
In the 1920s there were no obvious differences between the prevailing aesthetics of the female body in Italy and counterparts in other countries. From the United States, Britain and France a ‘sporty’, tomboyish, nimble and slender stereotype of femininity had spread across the world. The Fascist regime dressed the female members of its organisations in appropriate and fashionable clothes. In the years 1926–29, for example, members of the Piccole Italiane and the Giovani Italiane, then controlled by the Fasci Femminili, wore short black skirts, black ties, and long, straight white blouses that made their hips and breasts look small, and their hair, cut à la garçonne, was held away from their eyes with coloured ribbons. Both the official Fascist organisations and the remaining women’s magazines urged girls ‘to disregard moonlight and feminine pallor’, 1 to give up their lazy, weak, inglorious lives, and to launch themselves vigorously into dynamic activities just like men. These stereotypes were overtly linked to the mores of the most industrialised countries, and to the Futurist themes of dynamism and speed, which had become Italian national myths.
