The book discusses the transition that took place between 1944 and 1953, allowing Italian dressmaking to move from being considered a practice of copying Parisian models to achieving the status of ‘couture’, an attribution of value and recognition of individual originality. Building up from what has been researched so far on commissionaire Giovanni Battista Giorgini, the book sets out to demonstrate that the Italian High Fashion Shows were not so much an ingenious intuition of Giorgini but rather his clever attempt at consolidating trends and sentiments that invested several Italian and American fashion intermediaries of the time. The book contextualizes the earliest appearances of discourses on an ‘Italian fashion scene’ in US magazines and newspapers, mapping their descriptions of a collective identity of Italian fashion exports and highlighting the attention on simplicity and ingenuity. The same attributes are then examined in the promotions of Italian fashion merchandise operated in the United States and, with less success, in Italy until 1951. The six chapters document the gradual expansion of Italian fashion exports to the United States: from handcrafted accessories and textiles; to a small series of sportswear, knitwear, and the quintessentially Italian moda boutique; to the eventual inclusion in the early 1950s of high-end sartorie, finally recognised as original representatives of the new Italian couture.