«MI dear friend, I write them in a hurry. I start in half an hour to bomb Grahoro. I led my group to nine aerial bombings in five days … and the crew is safe! Mystical invulnerability. The title for the company is this. I found it yesterday on the chiapovan valley: The Rinascente. It is simple, clear and appropriate».
So he wrote in 1917 a battagliero Gabriele D’Annunzioto consecrate the “rebirth” of a place symbol of Milanese: how known, a new name had been asked for Vate for Bocconi warehousesrecently purchased by Senator Borletti. A story that has accompanied that of the Italian cultureas the novel tells The construction of a dream. The girls of the Rinascente (Neri Pozza), where the writer and historical Giacinta Cavagna of Gualdana intertwines with panache truth of other times to characters who, albeit of invention, allow to live every moment of this long adventure.
A few years ago, the author was enough enter a room covered with drawings of Marcello Dudovich To understand that that would have been his next story. “There Hand of the Trieste artistwho signed the greatest advertising posters of The Rinascente Until 1956, it brought me to combine the many pieces that I had already collected on Milan for mine previous book. In this case, the chronological journey is wide: from the end of the nineteenth century to the 1950s. Crossing the ferment of the Expo of 1906, social changes, stylistic changes. But also two wars and the two moments in which The Rinascente came destroyed and then reconstructed ».
Among the columns Liberty and beaten iron, the original interior of La Rinascente (Getty Images).
A great debut
In the mid -nineteenth century, Milan was already configuring itself as the dynamic city that we know, between galleries inspired by the Parisian passages, cafés, specialized boutiques. In this atmosphere, Lodigiano Ferdinando Bocconi, son of a street vendor, in 1865 opened with his brother Luigi a fabric shop. First they realized Non -customized men’s dressesbut always elegant, even if already packaged: the following year they employed 100 people for this reality. “Producing” at home “to maintain competitive prices was their first shot of genius. Expanding, they began to offer too linen, hats, footwear and furniture. And a brand new idea for Italy: having a fixed employees without offering, where to offer advanced machinery and materials to craftsmen to free them from the weight of the management costs. Thus they won a continuous production at already fixed prices, “explains the author.
The Rinascente is a showcase of the 1950s. (Municipality of Milan, Casva – Fondo Amneris Latis)
After uninterrupted growth, in 1889, the warehouses Aux villas d’alieliein Piazza del Duomo, in the position we know well (renamed “to the cities of Italy” after the controversies in the Milanese press, annoyed by the use of a foreign name). Here the new middle class He had a place for the first time where satisfy every desire. Come out to make purchases without having a real need, only for the taste of Let yourself be inspired? If for us today it is obvious, in that Splendid Liberty building it became reality.
“There was a day for days pilgrimage of thousands of people, who came from all over the Lombard city, from neighboring countries … a general tribute of admiration For the great, imposing successful work »he declaimed Italian illustration, celebrating that “glass and iron house, huge shop that at the only turn of the gaze discovers all the details of his Move life, hasty “.
Catalogs, posters, even hot air balloons used for launch advertising flyers: So much had been the avant -garde of the brothers who had used electric lights to their beginnings to illuminate the windows. Another primacy. Ferdinando, enlightened entrepreneur, will make his heirs study in Switzerland. To his son Luigi, who died at war, will dedicate the university of the same name founded in 1902. But at the disappearance of the founder, i warehouses began a slow declinewho brought his son Ettore to that sale that will sanction the aforementioned “rebirth”.
A new life, a new dream
Senator Borletti was born in 1880. After winning a good heritage Thanks to the Borletti Fratelli, a clock company founded by the father in 1896 (converted during the Great War to the production of spolets for bullets), he chose to leave the brother in the family business to focus on a dream. «His love for the reality of department stores He grew up after reading the novel Au bonheur des damages by Émile Zola. Where the author illustrated the New Parisian phenomenon of the chic purchases created by Aristide Boucicaut, founder of the elegant Grand Magasin The Bon Marché »continues Giacinta.
Strengthened by a new name thanks to the friend D’Annunzio (of which He had financed the Fiumana company), thus inaugurated the renewed in 1918 Milanese purchases temple with a strong propensity to marketingoffering very different articles e not expensivebetween balconies surrounded by columns. The Shopping was democratized: But after two weeks, a few days after Christmas, the building burned in a fire. “Post Fata Resurgo”: After death he raised me, he sentenced Borletti. So the Rinascente will reopen in 1921 with crystal windows And Wonderful interiors just redone.
The birth of a myth (and a prize)
In 1920sin rapid expansion, Borletti strengthened his commercial model between Purchased items and internal production. The design came with an high -sounding name, but above all “family”: Gio Ponti. «After marrying the sister of Senator’s sister -in -law in 1927 he launched the Rinascente on Domus Nova brandproposing not only affordable, but also elegant furnishings. The goal? Satisfy a Wide as possible audienceeducating him to beauty »underlines the author. That year The Rinascente He came to exhibit at the third edition of the Biennial of Monza decorative arts. Until in 1954, thanks to Ponti, he established the first edition of the Compasso d’oro award.
“With Ponti he had collaborated Cesare Brustio, Son of that Umberto who was brother -in -law and eternal right arm of Borletti. At the time we worked in the team to reach, together, a noble common good. It is no coincidence that the first edition awarded the aesthetics of the productkeeping an educational goal ». But also practical: right in Rinascente i refrigerators they came for the first time proposed to competitive priceslifting women from the obligation of the daily expense.
Destroyed by the bombings, at the time the building was brand new. No longer external classic and beaten irons: in 1950 he reopened with a rationalist facade that he shocked the Milanese. “That architecture had something unpublished. The candle marblealso used for the Duomo, had been granted exceptional to that project that despite it city indignation It was maintained, “said Cavagna di Gualdana. In those spaces they sold themselves elegant newsother than the products offered by another idea of Borletti, the Upim: warehouses born in 1928 where everything was sold to a “The only Italian price”. The competitor? There Standardinaugurated shortly after by the brother -in -law of Senator Borletti’s brother, Franco Monzinowhich had already contributed to the opening of the Upim. He resigned to found one similar realitythen renamed Standa da Mussolini in honor of the Fascist lawswhich required to Italianize all foreign words.
On the side of people
«From Bocconi to Borletti, we talk about men who managed to fulfill a collective dream Thanks to companies that can create a strong sense of belonging. They had more than average possibilities, but lived in a society in which the wars They had created a strong common experience; The gap between men it was lower and the figure of the enlightened entrepreneur He was closer to the worker. They remembered names and problems, entering people’s lives, “comments the author. Brustio favored one Cup La Rinascente dedicated to tennis and other recreational-sports activities. They were then a cultural and technical association and a restaurant. During the autarchy of the thirties, the company promoted Domestic economy courses To explain to customers (and employees) how to saveusing fabrics turned up or repairing shoes.
The detail of an innovative 1956 showcase. (Municipality of Milan, Casva – Fondo Amneris Latis)
Between fashion and femininity
And the women? Many, smiling, welcomed the audience every day. In the beloved internal magazinethe colleagues periodically proclaimed the “kindest”. The journalist Elena Melik underlined how the saleswoman represented “a Example of accuracy, style. Looking at it, the family mother who had never approached the cosmetics he feels the need to try to become more beautiful ».
For some time The Rinascente contributed to the good female taste. In the 1950s he invented the Elle Erre line to interpret the New trends arrived from America. It was the place where the creator Mary Quant He presented the miniskirt, where the jeans made his debut. While Pierre Cardin signed a contract for the production of its line a popular prices. As the great journalist Maria Pezzi in the Chronicles of the Rinascente Upim of 1968, fashion had always remained aristocratic but also popular: «He resisted victoriously to two wars. And just in the last, when everything was missing to create it, when there was no more silk, nor wool, nor a threadshe adapted to the cork, the billiard cloth, the ribbons, the old curtains. Not with humility, but with elegance, with arrogance, with extravagance… just then he showed that the luxury of an elite to make fashion is not necessary, but but good taste of all ».