Liberty, Equality, Frivolity!: An Italian Critique of Fashion Periodicals

Elisabetta Caminer Turra (1751-96) was one of Italy's first female journalists. Her periodical, the Giornale enciclopedico (later Nuovo giornale enciclopedico, and Nuovo giornale enciclopedico d'Italia), offered reviews, extracts, and announcements of the latest literary, scientific, philosophical, and historical works published across Europe. Under Caminer's direction, the periodical became the most progressive Enlightenment influence in the Veneto region of Italy. While not opposed to the fashion industry—which she viewed as useful to commerce—Caminer became an adamant critic of the new fashion periodicals for women. In a series of reviews published between 1777 and 1786, she critiqued her compatriots' willingness to ape French fashions, inveighed against the claims of fashion periodicals to provide an education for women, and warned her female readers that choosing the toilette over the writing table allowed men to retain their superior position in the gender hierarchy and made women complicit in their own subjugation.