L'Italo-Americano

www.italoamericano.org 20 L'Italo-Americano THURSDAY, APRIL 20, 2017 C lothing is an expression of cultural identity, as it defines the self and one's relationship with society. Commonly, an item is chosen over another to express a frame of mind or in order to attend a certain event. For Italians, fash- ion is a necessity. Yet there is an accessory of fashion that shapes more than others the person who wears it, becoming an extension of that person. If not the hat, what else? A protector, a mask, a signature, but most of all, a brand: Borsalino. Borsalino City is the Italian documentary film directed and produced by Enrica Viola, which retraces the story of the most famous hat in the world. "Dear Vittorio, you may remember me... my name is Robert Redford… " A 1965 let- ter to Vittorio Vaccarino, a descendant of the Borsalino fam- ily, requesting the hat Redford fell in love with - the black Borsalino worn by Marcello Mastroianni in Fellini's 8 ½. Basically it was Fellini's hat! Ultimately, the long-awaited hat sat in Robert Redford's lap while he explained the story behind this icon. Borsalino City pulls the cur- tains on the relationship between fine Italian craftsmanship and the glamorous star system. It opens by establishing the hat as a myth, "The hat is inseparable from cin- ema mythology", explains screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière. And it is a faithful ally FRANCESCA AROSSA of the image, the one who devel- oped its legendary style. The story of the Italian hat began in a small province of Piemonte, when Giuseppe Borsalino began to build his empire in 1857, and which endured for over 125 years. It was a time where the hat repre- sented a must-have item. Aside from its principal function to cover the head from the ele- ments, the hat revealed social sta- tus - the bowler hat on the financier, the top hat on the aris- tocrat, the beret on the working class man. And Borsalino pro- duced them all, distinguishing itself for the elegance and the quality of the product, a van- guard of Made in Italy. By 1900, Borsalino was already an icon - the Oxford Dictionary even added the term Borsalino hat as a common noun for a wide-brim felt hat. While the cinematographer was invented, the numerous employees exiting the Borsalino factory would have surprised the Lumière brothers. The Company was the core of Alessandria, "it hired the whole town" says a worker in the film. The citizens were employees, the employees were citizens. The siren of the Borsalino factory resounded through the city, defining every- body's time. By wearing the hat, you could see the workmen mak- ing it: swelling, filling, finishing, over and over. You could touch the soft and refined rabbit's fur imported from Australia by the already old Giuseppe. You could also hear the sound of the English machines working along- side the men, bought to speed up the work. And after a hard day's work, you could watch the "Borsaline" exciting, the most beautiful women in town. The world of this local province echoed in Hollywood, in the shooting of gangster films of the '40s, in the ambiguous characters of film noir in the '50s, and in the most beautiful divas; the hat could turn name- less faces into legends. What would Charlie Chaplin be with- out his hat? This was the stage where the Borsalino hat best per- formed and the Fedora was the new protagonist on everyone's head. Behind the scenes, in Alessandria, Giuseppe's succes- sion was not simple: few people know that for over 30 years there were two distinct Borsalino establishments, Borsalino Antica Casa and Borsalino Fu Lazzaro, held by the two cousins compet- ing over the family name with outstanding advertising, which initiated in Italy. Although, abroad there was no difference, the Borsalino was only one. In 1929, the company was at its peak: two million hats were exported. Amongst 2000 citizens, there were 3000 employees, including both companies. From the peek there was a gradual descent, in conjunction with WWII, the company began struggling as the society was changing. "The man lost the pleasure to remove his hat in front of a lady", says Vittorio Vaccarino. In the '60s, the new generations of long-haired refused the hat and along with the automobile boom, Borsalino became a more and more margin- al element. A few years after the second world war, when Borsalino had been bombed, a man came all the way to the Borsalino company, revealing himself to be the responsible pilot who dropped the bombs. He felt guilty because he came from a milliner's family as well. Although the hat lost its original importance in society, this story reveals how it is part of a collective imagination, the same that brought the pilot, Robert Redford, and many others to the company. And the same that still persists today. The hat traveled from a small provincial town to the glamorous world of Hollywood, along with Borsalino City, the utopian city of hats. This independent produc- tion gathered important artists, workers, family members from all over, to share the stories around the hat. This is the strength of a myth. While most of the hat companies in the world closed, Borsalino persisted. Despite the family sold it in 1985 and the chimney stack, symbol of the one-company town, was demolished. But the emotions the hat gave us are unforgettable. Could you ever imagine the last scene of Casablanca, Humphrey Bogart saying goodbye to Ingrid Bergman, without that hat? Borsalino: The Italian Hat in Hollywood LA VITA ITALIANA TRADITIONS HISTORY CULTURE

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