How Do They Dress in Italian TV Series A little constrained and with no brands
The work of the costume designer is very delicate: every character's style, both in cinema and television, is capital to tell something about him/her, so as the selection of his/her entire fictional closet. In the past few years, some series have become fundamental in fashion: series as Love and Top Boy on Netflix, Fleabag on Prime Video, Euphoria on HBO and the latest Normal People on Hulu represented with extreme precision the generation of millennials, paying attention also on their protagonists' outfits (the hoodie worn by Zendaya in Euphoria has been recently auctioned among some other props from A24).
Still, if we think of the most important Italian tv series, all the characters are always dressed the same: a little constrained and with a respectable school-boy style. Italian tv series, in fact, all suffer of the same flaw: for how much they try, they almost always reach a "blurred" version of reality. In particular, for what concerns teenagers, Italian series portray a non-existent generation where everybody's dressed the same, completely missing out the love that teenagers have for brands, whether it is a Supreme tee or a pair of Air Max. In particular, in Italian tv series there is a lack of brands, as if they don't exist in anyone's closet. Though, as Bad Tales by D’Innocenzo brothers fairly pointed out, even the most dull father in the suburbs in Italy has his own collection of Fred Perrys.
The rules behind costume design in Italian tv productions are quite strict. In particular, the presence of a brand is mostly dictated by a sponsor; when there is not a sponsor, the biggest part of their clothing is then selected from a pre-existent archive made of generic dresses, recyclable, usually fast fashion items with no tags. Add to this the fact that generalist television has a lot of restrictions for what concerns showing off brands: many times, costume designers deliberately choose items with no logos just to avoid some annoying consequences. That's why the style of all the characters in Italian tv series might seem "flat": but that doesn't bother their producers, because they know that they have to sell their products to a generalist public that could be easily shocked.
"It is very important for me to say that it is been a few years that - as costume designers - we don't have the opportunity to work big big fashion brands because of many strong contractual limits", said Isabelle Caillaud, a spokesperson for A.S.C. (Associazione Scenografi Costumisti e Arredatori Italiana); "Many times, we can't absolutely propose items that have logos or anything that could make you associate them with famous brands. If you do that, every reference will be blurred in post-production (and that means extra-work and extra-costs for the crew). Furthermore, we don't have high budgets so we can't even buy all those items that could help us represent a specific social environment. Talking about teen dramas, we are also always asked to lighten up every transgressive detail about contemporary teenagers."
Recently, somebody gave up on the product placements in order to be free in the selection of its items and search for a most realistic representation: that is the case of Ultras by Francesco Lettieri, that is full of logos, none of which has been sponsored. Given this freedom, one may think that things are different when it comes to Netflix, but all of Netflix Italia productions are co-productions: they are lately distributed worldwide by the streaming platform, but their production is always entrusted to Italian companies (mostly Cattleya), with their rules and work ethic. It doesn't matter that Benedetta Porcaroli is a soldier for Alessandro Michele: she can try to propose some items sponsored by Gucci to the costume designer, but Gucci has not the last word.
"It is sad that beside Rai and Mediaset (the most important generalist broadcasters in Italy), Netflix places restrictive conditions, too. Netflix Italia doesn't invest the same money on Italian production as it does for other Countries", added Caillaud; "Obviously, because of all these limits brands have always been less interested in Italian tv series, considering that they are not going to get any useful feedback in exchange of their expensive costumes."
In general, the work of a costume designer is much free in cinema than in television. Despite these restrictions, though, one of the most famous Academy Award® winner of all times is Italian: Milena Canonero, awarded for her work on movies like Barry Lindon by Stanley Kubrick, Marie Antoinette by Sofia Coppola and Grand Budapest Hotel by Wes Anderson. Seriality is still far from these results. Fortunately, to tolerate this delusion, Netflix comes to your rescue: the fourth season of Skam Italia will be available from Friday May 15th, 2020. Who knows which sneakers they're going to wear.
