Sex sells . . .

If all the world’s a stage and we are merely players, Rome is the Broadway of the world, and the Via del Corso its apex. Named the ‘Way of the Race’ for the horse races on it in the eighteenth century – the Corso was also a street in Rome’s ancient days – leading from the northern city gate to the Forum and called the Via Lata, which literally means ‘Broad Way.’ These days the cream of the Italian fashion industry is gathered here and on the exclusive Via Condotti that runs between it and the Spanish Steps; and also in the small cobblestone streets around, where the upscale private clothiers operate. On the Corso one finds the more mainstream stores like Benetton and Sisley, and a cross-section of humanity as varied as their choice of dress - from older women in suits with carefully chosen bags and jewelry to younger professionals in tight skirts and spike heels, teenage girls in low-hung jeans, leather-clad street-toughs and Euro hippies.

On Saturday the street is choked with throngs of working-class Romans from the city suburbs, in for the traditional ‘passeggiata.’ This custom has for centuries been an integral part of Italian life – from the Via del Corso to the smallest village square, where both young and old come out after dinner for a slow promenade. It is one of the more endearing qualities of the Italian people and the stage-settings of the piazzas, generally with churches for backdrops, foster it. For Rome’s churches and piazzas are not only visible traces of how the Roman Catholic Church strove to restore to the city the grandeur and authority of Imperial Rome in the name of the pope, they are theatres for daily life; stage settings for the bourgeoisie. Moreover, the art inside of these churches is generally rife with a violent sensuality all too evident in a contemporary lovers’ quarrel in the Piazza Navona – from swooning women in ecstatic states to gory depictions of martyrdoms.

The high end of the Italian fashion industry produces immaculate, often very clean-lined designs. Yet open shoulders, see-through fabric, and rhinestone-studded cleavage apertures are just as large a part of its repertoire as high-quality leather and cotton. This dichotomy can be see every day on the very sex-charged Italian TV, where incongruous dancing girls flank the hosts of the daily quiz and talk shows and the female weather reporter has two-too many buttons undone. Going back in history and looking at Italian Baroque art and architecture, however, can give some perspective to the challenges of the Anglo-Saxon shopper bent on his or her pre-conceived notions of style.

“But it was Bernini, the greatest artist of the period, who with his poetical and visionary masterpieces created perhaps the most sublime realization of the longings of his age . . . ”

Rudolf Wittkower

Interestingly enough, one could argue that those longings are still very much alive today, channeled through the more or less direct links between the Baroque’s emotive, illusive and often overtly sensual qualities and the Italians’ compulsive need for self-presentation. When standing before Bernini’s ‘Ecstasy of Saint Teresa,’ his ‘Death of the Blessed Ludovica Albertoni,’ or his androgynous angels for the Ponte Sant’ Angelo, one is confronted with a bombardment of the senses in much the same way as watching a sexy girl walk through the Piazza Navona, or a man in a lemon-yellow suit eat a gelato. Both are ‘over the top,’ as it were.

With its scenic effects and illusionistic devices, Baroque propaganda was essentially designed to bring Heaven down to Earth; to amaze the common people and convince them that only through the Church could the answers to life’s questions be found. Thus, in Rome’s baroque churches, the architecture, sculptures and paintings all work together to convince and convert. These concepts ring true when one looks at Italian fashion today. Functionality carries little weight, comfort is not a priority – particularly on the shoe scene – and the use of scenic effects grand. Never mind that, when the Roman summer hits 100 degrees and the humidity from the Tiber and ancient marsh lands hit, polyester is not very comfortable. Illusionistic devices are often employed, such as transparent bra straps; and there is a great deal of ritual connected to dressing up and going out. For the Romans, the world is still a stage, and its players seek to impress us and convince us, and bring us a little bit of ecstasy every day . . .

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