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How to Be Beautiful like Mrs. Consumer: American Beauty and Italian Women

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Italian Women's Experiences with American Consumer Culture, 1945–1975

Part of the book series: Italian and Italian American Studies ((IIAS))

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Abstract

This chapter investigates one of the most noticeable changes to Italian women’s physical appearance in the postwar period: the increased use of beauty and hygiene products. The flood of American and American influenced beauty and hygiene products into postwar Italy resulted in the rise to prominence of the American beauty ideal in the peninsula. In analyzing the images and words of beauty and hygiene product advertisements from the women’s magazine Annabella, Harris articulates the components of this ideal and illustrates how it broke with traditional ideas of Italian beauty. Moreover, the chapter reveals how this new ideal promoted democratic consumer capitalist values—freedom of choice, individualism, and affluence—that stood in stark contrast to Communist values and their perceived threat to the West.

Part of this chapter previously appeared in Modern Italy, 22(1), © 2017 Association for the Study of Modern Italy, published by Cambridge University Press as “‘In America è vietato essere brutte’: Advertising American beauty in the Italian women’s magazine Annabella, 1945–1965.”

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In the postwar era, the global beauty market was dominated by the United States whereby its market “comprised well over half of the world total in 1950 and was still over two-fifths of the global beauty industry by the mid-1970s.” Geoffrey Jones (2010, 151).

  2. 2.

    Nerio Minuzzo (1965, 54).

  3. 3.

    Ibid.

  4. 4.

    Starting in the 1920s several of the leading American beauty companies, such as Max Factor, Helena Rubenstein, Elizabeth Arden, and Pond’s, began to internationalize by exporting their products, opening branches or salons in European, Latin American, and Asian cities, and/or establishing factories in these same foreign locations. For example, Geoffrey Jones, in Beauty Imagined: A History of the Global Beauty Industry, writes that “by 1937 [Elizabeth Arden’s] business in Britain alone had annual sales of $1 million.” Furthermore, in 1949, 25 percent of Max Factor’s $15 million total revenue came from the international market. Jones (2010, 127, 126–128, 369).

  5. 5.

    Stephen Gundle (2007, xviii).

  6. 6.

    Victoria De Grazia (1992, 73, 211–212).

  7. 7.

    Gundle (2007, 106).

  8. 8.

    Christopher Duggan (2008, 532).

  9. 9.

    Gisella Bochicchio and Rosanna De Longis (2010, 14–20).

  10. 10.

    Luisa Passerini (1994, 337).

  11. 11.

    This figure includes fotoromanzi (magazines consisting of an illustrated story published primarily for female readers) and non-weekly magazines. Giocchino Forte (1966, 114).

  12. 12.

    Ibid.

  13. 13.

    Jennifer Scanlon (1995, 13, 16).

  14. 14.

    Emily S. Rosenberg (1999, 490).

  15. 15.

    Ibid., 482.

  16. 16.

    Forte (1966, 82).

  17. 17.

    Ferdinando Fasce and Elisabetta Bini (2015, 7–30).

  18. 18.

    Maria Canella and Elena Puccinelli (2011, 377, 379).

  19. 19.

    For more on Lei’s international modernity see Maria Antonella Pelizzari (2015, 34–52).

  20. 20.

    One of the most notable differences regards the place of residence and actual dwellings of American and Italian middle-class women. In the postwar period, the United States underwent a process of suburbanization with families settling in single-family houses while Italy underwent a process of urbanization with people settling in multi-unit dwellings. For more information on differences between the American Mrs. Consumer and Italian women, which resulted in “an Americanisation of images and desires more so than of behaviors” see Elisabetta Vezzosi (settembre 2001).

  21. 21.

    As a result of the Monopoly Law, a protectionist measure passed by the Fascist regime that “gave the Italian company ENIC (Ente Nazionale Industrie Cinematografiche) a monopoly on the purchase, import and distribution in Italy and its colonies of all foreign films,” and the subsequent decision of Hollywood producers to pull out of the Italian market, the number of American films in Italy between 1939, when the decree when into effect, and 1945 was greatly reduced. Following the end of the war, American films flooded the Italian market. The number of Hollywood films imported into Italy in 1948 was 668, and “in 1949 they accounted for 73 percent of box office takings.” David Forgacs and Stephen Gundle (2007, 207), Gundle (2000, 33, 45).

  22. 22.

    Francesco Alberoni (1965, 42).

  23. 23.

    Stephen Gundle (2008, 192).

  24. 24.

    Julie Willet, ed. (2010, 115–116).

  25. 25.

    Fred E. Basten (1995, 61).

  26. 26.

    Max Factor Armonia di colori Advertisement, Annabella, 10 ottobre 1948.

  27. 27.

    Max Factor Pan-Stik Advertisement, Annabella, 21 ottobre 1951.

  28. 28.

    Max Factor Pan-Cake Makeup Advertisement, Annabella, 11 marzo 1951.

  29. 29.

    Max Factor Rosso per labbra Advertisement, Annabella, 15 febbraio 1953.; Max Factor Pan-Cake Makeup Advertisement, Annabella, 15 marzo 1953.

  30. 30.

    Max Factor Rosso per labbra Advertisement, Annabella, 15 febbraio 1953.

  31. 31.

    Paglieri Velluto di Hollywood Advertisement, Annabella, 7 gennaio 1951.

  32. 32.

    Ibid.

  33. 33.

    Ibid.

  34. 34.

    Fasce and Bini (2015, 14).

  35. 35.

    For more information on the Catholics’ and Communists’ positions on American consumerism and their definitions of the relationship between democracy and consumerism see Chap. 6 and Stefano Cavazza (2013, 13–48).

  36. 36.

    “Terza Lezione Beauty School,” Annabella, 30 settembre 1962, 15.

  37. 37.

    Ibid.

  38. 38.

    Emanuela Scarpellini (2011, 152–153).

  39. 39.

    Revlon Contempera Advertisement, Annabella, 1ottobre 1961.

  40. 40.

    Helena Rubinstein Coverfluid Advertisement, Annabella, 17 aprile 1960.; Max Factor Crème Paff Advertisement, Annabella, 22 settembre 1957.

  41. 41.

    For more information on this aspect see Chaps. 4 and 7, and Ruth Schwartz Cowan (1983).

  42. 42.

    For examples, see Chap. 6.

  43. 43.

    Max Factor Cipria Advertisement, Annabella, 6 febbraio 1949.; Max Factor Crème Paff Advertisement, Annabella, 9 maggio 1954.

  44. 44.

    Max Factor Hi-Society Advertisement, Annabella, 1 novembre 1959.

  45. 45.

    Elizabeth Arden Advertisement, Annabella, 29 marzo 1959.; Max Factor Color Fast Lipstick Advertisement, Annabella, 4 marzo 1950.; Helena Rubinstein Advertisement, Annabella, 29 gennaio 1961.

  46. 46.

    Revlon Million Dollar Look Advertisement, Annabella, 27 ottobre 1963.

  47. 47.

    Ibid.

  48. 48.

    Helena Rubinstein, Indélibase Advertisement, Annabella, 26 luglio 1953.; Helena Rubinstein Young Look Advertisement, Annabella, 17 maggio 1959.

  49. 49.

    Helena Rubinstein Young Look Advertisement, Annabella, 17 maggio 1959.

  50. 50.

    Estée Lauder Youth Blend Advertisement, Annabella, 31 maggio 1964.

  51. 51.

    Max Factor Erace Advertisement, Annabella, 5 giugno 1955.; Max Factor Calice di Giovinezza Advertisement, Annabella, 30 novembre 1958.; Estée Lauder Estoderme Youth-Dew Advertisement, Annabella, 28 luglio 1963.

  52. 52.

    Helena Rubinstein Advertisement, Annabella, 24 febbraio 1957.

  53. 53.

    Revlon Renaissance Treatment Collection Advertisement, Annabella, 21 ottobre 1965.

  54. 54.

    Helena Rubinstein Skin Life Skin Cream Advertisement, Annabella, 23 novembre 1958.

  55. 55.

    Gundle (2007, 110).

  56. 56.

    Ibid.

  57. 57.

    Products for women’s bodies were also advertised in Annabella, but the majority were advertised as hygiene products to keep one clean and fresh, such as bath sops, as opposed to creating a distinct personality for oneself.

  58. 58.

    Kathy Peiss (1998, 245, 249).

  59. 59.

    Ibid., 249.

  60. 60.

    Ibid. 251.

  61. 61.

    Revlon Touch and Glow Advertisement, Annabella, 12 maggio 1957.; Revlon Love-Pat Advertisement, Annabella, 10 febbraio 1957.

  62. 62.

    This advertisement appeared in Annabella approximately seven months before the film Cleopatra (dir., Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1963) starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, which was partly filmed at Rome’s Cinecittà studios, was released in the United States. Therefore, this is another example of the connection made between Hollywood and beauty in the advertisements. Revlon Cleopatra Look Advertisement, Annabella, 4 novembre 1962.

  63. 63.

    Ibid.

  64. 64.

    Max Factor Pan-Stik Advertisement, Annabella, 21 ottobre 1951.

  65. 65.

    Elizabeth Arden Pure Red Advertisement, Annabella, 30 gennaio 1955.

  66. 66.

    “Una Porta Rossa anche alla Rinascente,” Annabella, 28 luglio 1966.

  67. 67.

    Lindy Woodhead (2003, 2).

  68. 68.

    Ibid., 6.

  69. 69.

    “Una Porta Rossa anche alla Rinascente,” Annabella, 28 luglio 1966.

  70. 70.

    Woodhead (2003, 9–10).

  71. 71.

    In The Frontier of Leisure: Southern California and the Shaping of Modern America, Lawrence Culver writes that “in the twentieth century, a people once obsessed with collective endeavors proved increasingly isolated and atomized, demanding gated communities and privatized security forces…In Southern California, recreation and leisure became synonymous with privacy… [this model of leisure and recreation had] implications far beyond the region itself,” becoming an important aspect of postwar America’s mass consumer society, and in the context of this book, in postwar Italian society as well. Lawrence Culver (2010, 3).

  72. 72.

    This definition of American cleanliness developed at the end of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century with the mass arrival of southern and eastern European immigrants in the country. Suellen Hoy writes: “Cleanliness for health’s sake impelled reformers to teach immigrants certain basic facts about American life. Their beginning lessons on how to find work, become citizens, and learn English frequently included advice on how to keep clean in an urban environment.” Suellen Hoy (1995, 87, 88).

  73. 73.

    Ibid., 123.

  74. 74.

    Hoy, 88.

  75. 75.

    Ibid., xiv.

  76. 76.

    Hoy writes that this was a major aspect of the “culture of cleanliness’s” success in the United States after the Second World War. This is also true for Italian women of the period as they experienced a similar upward mobility and an entrance into modernity albeit at a slower pace. Ibid., 172.

  77. 77.

    OLÀ Advertisement, Annabella, 27 febbraio 1955.

  78. 78.

    Cristina Lombardi-Diop offers a further analysis on cleanliness and Italian national identity and memory. She writes that the promotion of cleanliness through print and television advertising was and is used to “[facilitate] the erasure from public awareness of Italy’s past relations with its own internal differences, the excesses of women’s claims for political and economic independence, its history of racial mixing and interracial desires and, in today’s Italy, the daily encounters of Italians with blackness.” Cristina Lombardi-Diop (2011).

  79. 79.

    OLÀ Advertisement, Annabella, 7 settembre 1958; SUNIL Advertisement, Annabella, 7 settembre 1958.

  80. 80.

    SUNIL Advertisement, Annabella, 7 settembre 1958.

  81. 81.

    For more on the method of washing clothes before the arrival of the washing machine, see Chap. 7.

  82. 82.

    OLÀ Advertisement, Annabella, 27 febbraio 1955.

  83. 83.

    Lux Advertisement, Annabella, 5 luglio 1953.

  84. 84.

    OMO Advertisement, Annabella, 9 gennaio 1955.; OMO Advertisement, Annabella, 22 gennaio 1956.

  85. 85.

    OLÀ Advertisement, Annabella, 14 aprile 1957.

  86. 86.

    AVA Advertisement, Annabella, 23 gennaio 1955.

  87. 87.

    OMO Advertisement, Annabella, 17 gennaio 1954.

  88. 88.

    OMO Advertisement, Annabella, 22 gennaio 1956.

  89. 89.

    ODO-RO-NO Advertisement, Annabella, 25 luglio 1954.

  90. 90.

    Deodoro Advertisement, Annabella, 22 agosto 1954.

  91. 91.

    Deodorant Stopette Helene Curtis Advertisement, Annabella, 14 aprile 1957.

  92. 92.

    MUM Rollette Advertisement, Annabella, 13 gennaio 1957.

  93. 93.

    Deodoro Advertisement, Annabella, 21 luglio 1957.

  94. 94.

    “I denti e la bocca,” Annabella, 29 ottobre 1961, 20.

  95. 95.

    Colgate Advertisement, Annabella, 4 marzo 1956.

  96. 96.

    Colgate Advertisement, Annabella, 4 marzo 1956.

  97. 97.

    Colgate con Gardol Advertisement, Annabella, 3 novembre 1957.

  98. 98.

    Colgate con Gardol Advertisement, Annabella, 30 marzo 1958.

  99. 99.

    Colgate con Gardol Advertisements, Annabella, 11 febbraio 1962, 27 gennaio 1963.

  100. 100.

    Colgate Advertisements, Annabella, 10 marzo 1966, 23 maggio 1968.

  101. 101.

    Colgate Advertisement, Annabella, 10 marzo 1966.

  102. 102.

    Colgate Advertisement, Annabella, 23 maggio 1968.

  103. 103.

    Hoy (1995, 171).

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    Jessica L. Harris

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Harris, J.L. (2020). How to Be Beautiful like Mrs. Consumer: American Beauty and Italian Women. In: Italian Women's Experiences with American Consumer Culture, 1945–1975. Italian and Italian American Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-47825-4_5

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