Seamstresses in the city: modernity, mobility, and anxiety in post-world war two Italian film

This article examines the representations of Italian seamstresses in two postWorld War II Italian films, Le ragazze di Piazza di Spagna (Emmer, 1952), and Le amiche (Antonioni, 1955). Seamstresses were one of the few female workforces to gain notoriety and visibility in the urban landscape following World War II. They embody a critical contradiction between modernity and domesticity for women of this period. This article assesses how filmic representations are symptomatic of anxiety around women’s work, increased female mobility, and changing gender roles. Doreen Massey’s theory of space and gender (1994) is deployed to propose that urban space is not simply geographical, but is indicative of social space, ideological space, and gender relations.