MOLTO ITALIANO is the first podcast series produced by CHORA MEDIA – the Italian podcast company founded in 2020 by Guido Maria Brera, Mario Gianani, Roberto Zanco and Mario Calabresi who directs it – for Dolce&Gabbana. Designed for an international audience and produced in English, it is available for free starting July 7 on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Spreaker, Google Podcasts and all other major audio platforms, as well as on choramedia.com.
MOLTO ITALIANO is a journey into the creative imagination of Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana and those elements of style that, through their vision, have contributed to making Italy’s culture and traditions known throughout the world.
Each episode is dedicated to one of the “signs” that are part of Dolce&Gabbana’s history and DNA and that, together, make the brand so inescapably Italian: from corsetry to the color black, via the tank top and the Sicilian cart.
Leading the narrative, written by author and journalist Silvia Nucini, is Isabella Rossellini, an international icon film and fashion icon, who voices her memories while alternating with historians, academics and artists who share their perspectives on the elements at the center of each episode.
Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana reveal passions and inspirations behind their vision: each episode is a chorus of voices celebrating fashion, tradition, craftsmanship, art and culture.
THE EPISODES
Ep.1 The brassiere
Almost austere, black, and inspired by the great icons of Italy’s neorealist cinema: this is the brassiere which Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana have been dressing women with for years. Guided by the voice of Isabella Rossellini, we discover the birth of this garment – which manages to be at the same time both temperate and erotic, a symbol of motherhood and sensuality. French fashion historian Florence Müller tells of the brassiere’s first century of life, while the Sicilian writer Nadia Terranova shares her own memories of this object, from rites of passage to moments of family life.
Ep.2 Black
The color black has many meanings, often at odds with one another. It’s the color which Sicilian women used to wear for years in sign of mourning, but it’s also synonymous with elegance. It’s a symbol of power and modesty. You should always have something black hanging in your wardrobe, and it’s also worn by the fashion makers themselves. In this episode Isabella Rossellini guides us on our way to discover one of the iconic colors of Dolce&Gabbana, weaving together ancient stories and traditions. With contributions from the Academy Award winning director Giuseppe Tornatore, from the English journalist Suzy Menkes, and the American historian Carmela Spinelli.
Ep.3 The tank top
The tank top is a simple garment, an everyday one, and it is also “molto italiano”. This popular object has been reworked and transformed by the world of film. Guido Bonsaver, professor at the University of Oxford, and Rebecca Bauman, associate professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology, tell Isabella Rossellini of the first tank tops in film from the forties and fifties. As well as the significance of this garment (as soon as the most beloved actors of the time put it on), and of its evolution towards the world of action movie heroines. Director Giuseppe Tornatore shares with us the images that the tank top elicits in him, while journalist Suzy Menkes talks about the purely Italian style of Dolce&Gabbana.
Ep.4 The Sicilian cart
It’s reductive to consider Sicilian carts as mere vehicles. These carts are so rich in color and decorations that, according to Marianna Gatto of the Italian American Museum in Los Angeles, they’re best described as “walking books”. For the painter from Palermo, Gianfranco Fiore (who decorates these carts), they represent the most popular, creative and imaginative soul of the Sicilian people. Isabella Rossellini speaks with Gatto and Fiore of history, traditions and memories. She also talks with the German photographer Juergen Teller. In this episode we discover how the Dolce&Gabbana brand managed to inject new life in the cart and to bring it over to the fields of fashion, design and furnishing, where it has become a symbol of high quality Italian artisanship.
