How to give voice to the renewed interest in fashion that was beginning to emerge in a country stili bearing the cruel scars of war, but eager for rapid social and cultural change? Soon after the Second World War, the journalist and writer Irene Brin made a fundamental contribution to the invention of a language capable of representing the Italian style in the world, as well as promoting, at home, an awareness of the potential of its own creative forces. With the years of Fascist repression over, the journalist drew freely on her own cosmopolitan background, proving to be an attentive and sensitive analyst of the fashion phenomenon. It was an area that she saw as an ideal sphere in which to grasp profound changes in society that might otherwise have gone unnoticed. Her constant, persevering and painstaking focus on the necessary relationship that exists between the garment, the accessory and the person is once again proving to be an invaluable tool for the investigation of the specific cultural situations that govern the dynamics of production and consumption.