Milan Fashion Week – It was Milan Fashion Week that dominated foreign press coverage of Italy this week. The international newspapers monitored not only gave their readers a general overview of the fashion shows put on at the event (with articles appearing in Le Figaro on February 27 – Week-end agité à Milan, and in The New York Times on February 28 – Catwalks Echo the Oscar Elegance, as well as a picture gallery on the site of The Wall Street Journal on February 28 – Milan Fashion Week — Photos), but also looked at the latest offerings presented by individual Made-in-Italy fashion labels. Dolce & Gabbana’s “King Midas” collection was featured in the pages of both The Independent (on February 27 – What austerity? Milan’s spirits lifted by opulence of Dolce & Gabbana) and The Washington Post (on February 26 – Dolce&Gabbana unveils its winter collection with a Midas touch). The latter US paper also ran articles on the new collections by Ferragamo (on February 26 – Ferragamo starts with military parade and ends with a waltz, balancing strength with softness), Missoni (on February 27 – Missoni’s urban nymph navigates concrete jungle in silhouette hugging styles*) and Armani (on February 26 – Armani puts fashion twist in knickers for the Emporio woman’s winter look*). In turn, the International Herald Tribune, as well as publishing reviews of the Fashion Week catwalk shows, also announced news of an upcoming exhibition in New York, a face-off of “impossible conversations” between Miuccia Prada and Elsa Schiaparelli, the designer who embraced Surrealism in the 1930s (February 25 – In Conversation: Miuccia and ‘Schiap’).
There were also reports on initiatives to promote the work of young Italian designers (in an interview with Carla Sozzani published in Le Monde on February 28 – “Les jeunes stylistes n’ont pas envie de souffrir”), whilst coverage in India’s Economic Times concentrated more on business strategies, highlighting the fact that Italian fashion labels are increasingly focusing on high-end hôtellerie (February 27 – High-end Fashion Hotels Show Jet-setters Luxury Italian Style).
Monti’s first hundred days – Foreign press interest did not however wane this week in Italian political and economic affairs. Several newspapers weighed up the results of Mario Monti’s first hundred days as prime minister (including: La Vanguardia on February 25 – Monti exhibe los éxitos de cien días que han empezado a cambiar Italia*, and the Financial Times on February 24 – Monti hails euro 43m savings success). The prime minister also gave an interview to America’s Bloomberg news agency (on March 1 – Italy’s Monti Sees Agreement on EU Firewalls: Interview, picked up by many other newspapers), in which he outlined the strategies underpinning the proposed European fiscal compact. Lastly, the recent good performance of Italian government bonds was noted by the Financial Times (on March 1 – Cheap loans push Italian yields lower*), Die Welt (on February 29 – Rom gewinnt Vertrauen zurück), and Expansión (on March 1 – El interés del bono italiano baja del 5% y acecha ya al español).
Italian music, sports and culture – In addition to a piece celebrating the memory of the recently-deceased Lucio Dalla (in El País on March 2 – La canción italiana pierde a Lucio Dalla, uno de sus gigantes), the foreign press both reverently and irreverently commemorated the 220th anniversary of the birth of Rossini (in the Suddeustsche Zeitung on February 29 – Aus dem Leben eines Beinahe-Kastraten). Italian art was the focus of a piece published in another German newspaper, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, which drew the attention of its readers to an exhibition of Roman Baroque drawings currently running in Munich (March 2 – Entrückter Augenaufschlag, Griff ans Herz), whilst Le Figaro examined the work of Giuseppe Penone, invited to exhibit at Versailles in 2013 (March 1 – Penone pose sa main de sculpteur sur les arbres). Finally, Italian achievements in the field of sports were the subject of an article in Spain’s El Mundo marking the seventieth birthday of Dino Zoff, described as “the best goalkeeper in the world” (February 28 – Zoff: el mito cumple 70 años).
* marked articles viewable online upon payment or registration