The Origins of the First Italian Department Store Are in 1865

EBHA Conference DRAFT VERSION Frankfurt, 1-3 September 2005 PLEASE DO NOT QUOTE ADVERTISING AND SELLING FASHION: THE BOCCONI DEPARTMENT STORES’ MAIL ORDER CATALOGS in the 1880s Elisabetta Merlo, Bocconi University ([email protected]) Francesca Polese, Bocconi University ([email protected]) Introduction This paper investigates the early development of the Italian fashion industry by considering the specific case of Milan at the end of the 19th century. In those years the city was not only one of the most advanced industrial centers of the country, but it also boasted a quite diversified productive environment in which all actors making up the clothing and textile industry were well present. Distribution was largely made possible by the existence of a great number of artisans who manufactured and sold garments and accessories. Starting from the second half of the 19th century, these “traditional” actors were joined by large and modern department stores, the most important of which was the Grandi Magazzini “Alle Città d’Italia” founded by the Bocconi brothers (renamed La Rinascente in 1921, with a new managerial direction and property structure). The creation of a wide market for the products of the emerging fashion industry was supported not only by the attractive window displays and opulent buildings of the department stores, but also by their innovative selling methods and by their catalogs. The latter were especially important in advertising fashion products and accessories, diffusing behavior etiquettes and teaching of sewing, cutting and other techniques essential in the manufacturing process of clothing and garments. This paper analyzes one issue of the mail order catalogs published by the Grandi Magazzini “Alle Città d’Italia” at the beginning of the 1880s and compares it with other sources providing, on the one hand, information on current prices of other typologies of goods in the city of Milan, and, on the other, current wages and family incomes. The fashion items advertised on the department store’s catalog are also compared, as far as prices and styles are concerned, with information concerning clothing and other accessories provided by the main fashion magazines of the time. For sure, catalogs were powerful means of advertisement for 1 EBHA Conference DRAFT VERSION Frankfurt, 1-3 September 2005 PLEASE DO NOT QUOTE the department store, which used the colorful images printed in its pages to attract potential customers. However, within the glossy pages of these publications the economic and business historian can find interesting information to better assess and define the role of the department store in the development of the modern fashion industry. For example, mail order catalogs show the extent to which department stores actually departed from traditional retailing and shed further light on their “democratizing” power. The study of the assortment of goods for sale and of the variety of prices gives an idea on the real extent of standardization made possible in 19th century stores. The comparison between the prices of catalogue goods and average incomes makes it possible to test the common opinion according to which the appearance of department stores created a mass market for fashion and clothing products. As we will try to explain, the analysis of the catalogs here considered suggests instead that in the second half of the 19th century – at least in Italy - department stores had not yet singled out a specific market segment and relied instead on a strategy of selling to customers of a miscellany of classes, in which the lower-middle classes probably did not play the major role. The paper is organized as follows: section 1 provides a snapshot of the economic development of Milan in the mid-19th century. Section 2 considers instead the origins of the department store and its evolution until the 1880s, while section 3 focuses on the 1882-1883 mail-order catalog. Some provisional conclusions complete the paper. 1. The Milan of the first Italian department store Although there is a lack of accurate statistical data, historians generally agree that it is in the second half of the 19th century that Italy started its industrialization process.1 Indeed, a «first coat of paint»2 of industrial activity was laid during the period 1860-1880, providing an initial basis for its definitive reinforcement at the turn of the century. This period saw a growth in the 1 See the debate recalled in V. Zamagni, The economic history of Italy, 1860-1990. Recovery after decline, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1993 and G.Federico – J.Cohen, The growth of the Italian economy, 1820-1960, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 2001. 2 The expression was originally Luciano Cafagna’s, in an article published in 1973, and it is now commonly used to refer to Lombardy’s mid-nineteenth-century economic development; see L. Cafagna, «Profilo generale della storia industriale italiana fino alla prima Guerra mondiale», in C.M. Cipolla (ed.), The Fontana economic history of Europe, vol. IV, London, 1973. 2 EBHA Conference DRAFT VERSION Frankfurt, 1-3 September 2005 PLEASE DO NOT QUOTE major economic indicators, although it must be stressed that this modernization presented strong regional differences, with industry concentrated in the Northern regions (especially Piedmont, Liguria and Lombardy, the so called “industrial triangle”). However, although significant when compared to the earlier situation, the modernization of Italian industry before the 20th century must not be overemphasized, even when taking into account the most developed regions. The majority of firms were still active in largely traditional (although rapidly and deeply evolving) sectors, particularly textiles, moreover maintaining strong links with agricultural activities. A clear example is provided by the cultivation of silk cocoons and silk manufacturing – once again concentrated mainly in the Northern regions – which were especially important for the backward and forward linkages provided to industrial activities and for assuring Italy a place in international markets.3 As far as organization is concerned, industrial activities remained largely of an artisan type with a small number of large companies emerging only in the most modern industrial branches. Lombardy, and especially the city of Milan, was one of the chief beneficiaries of this industrial spurt, which almost completely transformed the city into a modern industrial center at the beginning of World War One. The most evident effect of the industrial upsurge was demographic. Between 1859 and 1915 the city’s population nearly trebled (from 232,000 to 658,000), with a particularly strong increase between 1879 and 1889 (from 299,008 to 408,294). This impressive trend was largely fuelled by immigrants who were attracted by the increasing economic prosperity that made Milan a unique case in the Italian economy. Just to give an idea, between 1859 and 1915 the number of commercial enterprises registered in the city grew more than fourfold.4 Although the most rapid expansion occurred in the leading sectors of the Second Industrial Revolution – especially engineering and chemicals -, industrialization didn’t significantly alter the predominant aspects of the traditional urban economy, made of a wide miscellany of tiny labor intensive artisan sweatshops: according to the comparison made by Giuseppe Colombo in 18815, Milan was still more similar to Paris 3 See G. Federico, An economic history of the silk industry, 1830-1930, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1997. 4 See J. Morris, The political economy of shopkeeping in Milan: 1886-1922, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1993, p. 12. 5 Giuseppe Colombo (1836-1921) was one of the most important names of the Italian business and political community of those days. Member of the parliament, professor of mechanical engineering at Milan’s Politecnico, founder of the Italian Edison company. Colombo made a comparison between the Milanese and the Parisian industry in a conference held at the Italian National Industrial Exhibition, which took place in Milan in 1881. See F. Della Peruta, Lavoro e fabbrica, pp. 60-61 and A. Lyttleton, Milan 1880-1922: the city of industrial capitalism, in G. Brucker (ed.), People and communities in the western world, Homeward, IL, 1979, pp. 250- 3 EBHA Conference DRAFT VERSION Frankfurt, 1-3 September 2005 PLEASE DO NOT QUOTE than to Manchester. This was especially true for the clothing and fashion sector, which was made of a great amount of very small workshops producing clothes and fashion accessories (gloves, hats, shoes etc.). As far as fashion is concerned, like the French capital Milan boasted a well developed and diversified economy of fashion as documented by different kinds of historical sources. Among them, commercial guides - published yearly from the 1840s onwards - provide an extremely analytical picture of the very diversified productive urban environment in which all elements of the clothing and textile industry were present. The industrial census provide an idea of their numerical relevance. The picture provided by the 1881 industrial census – the first on a national level – shows a city in which the beginning of the industrialization process was characterized not by the presence of large factories, but rather by a dense network of small and tiny workshops and by the diffusion of domestic workers who produced goods on account of commercial firms. The number of workers in industrial activities was 68,000 of which

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