Category: costume

The She-Bear

On day 2 of Giambattista Basile‘s 1634 Tale of Tales, also known as The Pentameron, the sixth tale features a story that’s close to “Allerleirauh” by the Grimm Brothers and features some typical tropes in folklore, including shapeshifting through a magical object. Henriette-Julie de Murat, a XVII Century aristocratic French writer, uses this same device […]

Shirabyōshi dancers in the diary of Lady Sarashina

For a very small and specific part of the novel, I decided to research the role of a specific kind of dancers in medieval Japan, called shirabyōshi. As it happens, their role and characteristics are highly romanticized (i.e., objectified) by male authors of the time: they’re often portrayed as femmes fatales and seductresses, and this […]

LR100. RINASCENTE. Stories of Innovation

Quest’anno la Rinascente festeggia i 100 anni del suo nome, ideato da Gabriele D’Annunzio. Cominciava così una storia fatta di passione, talento e capacità di visione tale da suscitare, a partire dai primi del Novecento, un impatto innovativo sui modelli di consumo e sull’evoluzione che portò Milano ad affermarsi come motore economico dell’Italia postunitaria. Attraverso […]