In Italy there has always been a tradition of making jewellery from semi precious metal, as copies or prototypes of fine jewellery pieces. Made in Italy moves chronologically through the last 100 years, with pieces from the beginning of the 20th century, through to the years spent under fascist rule, when pieces had to be strictly made with local material such as wood, cork, straw, venetian glass and coral. The fifties and sixties allowed for the very first big names in fashion jewellery to arise: Giuliano Fratti, Emma Caimi Pellini, Coppola e Toppo, Luciana de Reutern, Canesi, Ornella…The book reserves a special place for an important phenomenon that took place in Milan at the end of the 1970s - Made in Italy - when Italian fashion entered - and dominated - the international scene, and Italian designers such as Armani, Versace, Ferre, Moschino and Prada found incredible success all over the world. Throughout the eighties and nineties, and well into the year 2000 further names in fashion jewellery were pushed to the fore: Ugo Correani, Sharra Pagano, Carlo Zini, Angela Caputi, Maria Calderara, Giorgio Vigna, Fabio Cammarata, Emilio Cressoni, Robert Tomas, Irene Moret, Silvia Beccaria, among others. The final section of the book is devoted to new talents, selecting ten designers whose jewels are particularly interesting and innovative. This section also contains lists of the major museums, galleries, schools and magazines in Europe that are dedicated to contemporary jewellery, illustrating that the line dividing the contemporary artist’s studio jewellery from contemporary fashion jewellery is becoming more and more difficult to define. Made in Italy applies special focus to the most important, interesting pieces, through both period images taken from exclusive fashion magazines, and through stunning photographs of actual pieces, resulting in almost 400 illustrations.
