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Among the three international fashion hubs Paris, Milan, and New York that have dominated fashion production since the 20th century, Italian fashion stands out through its transcultural Italophony. Since the historic beginnings of the West, the development of fashion, taste and etiquette in modern Italy plays both culturally and historically a key role in European politics, economics, literature, fine arts, music and theatre. This applies also to Italian design, which is – like fashion – a powerful nonverbal language in cultural, aesthetical and economic terms, expressing a unique and life-affirming sociological habitus. This essay intends to pinpoint the outstanding impact of taste, fashion and design originating from Italy and perceivable all over the world on a transcultural and transdisciplinary level. Starting with antiquity and Renaissance, both disciplines enter a period of prosperity and success during the golden 1950s and 1960s, supported by the rise of Cinecittà, family business structures and crafts enterprises. In early postmodernity, a shift takes place from Alta Moda to Pronto Moda, from fashion as art to popular, serial industrial ready?to?wear, and a complex reciprocal synergetic effect builds up between the fashion and design brands. Both sectors are equal in terms of international influence and versatility, both are associated complementary to each other, and both disseminate a new standard of shapeliness, elegance and peachiness in the whole country as well as on a transnational scale.

The bilingual volume, which emerged from an international colloquium at Villa Vigoni, focuses on Italy against the backdrop of current political, social and economic change processes that are challenging Europe. The focus will therefore be on central crystallisation points as well as challenges and fields of action in a European dimension, which can be made fruitful for the communication of current, differentiated and thus sustainable images of Italy in German-language education. The aim is to make a contribution to strengthening the Italian-German dialogue in the European context and also to the increasingly endangered German-language Italian studies. Interdisciplinary German-Italian-European research approaches will be presented in three sections on the following main topics: transcultural approaches and the culture of remembrance in theory and the arts, German-Italian-European education and understanding and current problem areas in Europe using Italy as an example.