The Right Juice
"Dear Vittorio, you may remember me...my name is Robert Redford". This is the beginning of a letter sent by Robert Redford to a Borsalino family member asking for a hat that the actor saw in Marcello…
The Right Juice
"Dear Vittorio, you may remember me...my name is Robert Redford". This is the beginning of a letter sent by Robert Redford to a Borsalino family member asking for a hat that the actor saw in Marcello Mastroianni's head in the movie of Fellini: 8 and ½. This is a telling letter if you want to understand the history of the Borsalino hat, an item that traveled throughout the world to become a mythical object but was produced with love and passion in Alessandria, a small Northern Italy town. The documentary is based on different testimonies, drawing a picture of two worlds: the small provincial town and its entrepreneurs, workers and local historians as well as the star system world, with people like Robert Redford, Jean Claude Carrière, Piero Tosi and Deborah Nadoolman Landis. These two worlds make one main dialogue, whit the Borsalino hat acting as the uniting force. It all started with Giuseppe Borsalino, founder together with his brother Lazzaro in 1857 of the first fulling plant in Alessandria, just after having obtained the "trade certificate" in Paris. Production rose fast, from 35 hats a day to 2000 at the end of the century. Giuseppe had two major intuitions: industrial mass production and the opening of new markets. He himself did several long journeys to market his new hat, firstly exploring Europe and Latin America, then the United States and ending in New Zealand. Thanks to his salesman network, by the end of the Ninetieth century the reputation of the Borsalino hat's great quality was established. Teresio Borsalino took over the company at his father's death in 1900; still the road to success was paved with obstacles. His cousin Giovanni Battista, feeling betrayed after being pushed out of family firm, opened a rival hat company in Alessandria - "G.N. Borsalino fu Lazzaro & Co". The two companies started a commercial battle, fought with manifestos and industrial films, enduring until the Antica casa madre bought the Nuova Borsalino in 1938 During the two first decades of the Twentieth century, Borsalino's fame grew in each continent, boosted by ad campaigns aimed at consolidating the older clientele, mostly the bourgeoisie, as well as reaching the expanding cultural and movie industries. From that moment on, Borsalino looked at new ways of brand promotion, for instance through the production of great industrial movies. As Borsalino took this direction, Hollywood and the star system were born, together with the social character of the gangster. People like Al Capone, Lucky Luciano and John Dillinger were wearing Borsalinos and movies looked at them for inspiration. It was through the noir genre that Borsalino entered into mainstream culture, becoming a synonym for hat. Gangsters, cops and private investigators all wore a fedora, a wide-brim hat, whose shadow made characters dark and mysterious. Borsalino spread rapidly across all genres, appearing in adventure films, romantic comedies or musicals, the hat defining roles, professions, style and class. It is an item with unique gesture capacity. It may provide passions, tears or laughter. More than that: it's a purveyor of symbols becoming essential in cinema industry. In 1939 Nino Usuelli followed his uncle during the worst moment ever: WW2, the Nazi occupation of Italy and with the markets being closed. The real decrease for Borsalino comes after the War and mostly during the 60's, as the cultural revolution and the making of individualism succeeding patriarchal and conservative society moved forwards. With economic boom and the following automobile's mass consumption, the hat loses his function as a daily use item and sales sink in few years. The company is sold in 1979 and Alessandria witnesses the downfall of a whole generation of hat makers. Cinema too is facing a large renewal of both its aesthetics and values but, in contrast to hat's fate, it keeps the link with it. Therefore, it is precisely because of cinema that Borsalino enters the world of mythical objects.
The Right Juice
Comedy,Drama,Romance
Film Details
"Dear Vittorio, you may remember me...my name is Robert Redford". This is the beginning of a letter sent by Robert Redford to a Borsalino family member asking for a hat that the actor saw in Marcello Mastroianni's head in the movie of Fellini: 8 and ½. This is a telling letter if you want to understand the history of the Borsalino hat, an item that traveled throughout the world to become a mythical object but was produced with love and passion in Alessandria, a small Northern Italy town.
The documentary is based on different testimonies, drawing a picture of two worlds: the small provincial town and its entrepreneurs, workers and local historians as well as the star system world, with people like Robert Redford, Jean Claude Carrière, Piero Tosi and Deborah Nadoolman Landis. These two worlds make one main dialogue, whit the Borsalino hat acting as the uniting force. It all started with Giuseppe Borsalino, founder together with his brother Lazzaro in 1857 of the first fulling plant in Alessandria, just after having obtained the "trade certificate" in Paris.
Production rose fast, from 35 hats a day to 2000 at the end of the century. Giuseppe had two major intuitions: industrial mass production and the opening of new markets. He himself did several long journeys to market his new hat, firstly exploring Europe and Latin America, then the United States and ending in New Zealand.
Thanks to his salesman network, by the end of the Ninetieth century the reputation of the Borsalino hat's great quality was established. Teresio Borsalino took over the company at his father's death in 1900; still the road to success was paved with obstacles. His cousin Giovanni Battista, feeling betrayed after being pushed out of family firm, opened a rival hat company in Alessandria - "G.N.
Borsalino fu Lazzaro & Co". The two companies started a commercial battle, fought with manifestos and industrial films, enduring until the Antica casa madre bought the Nuova Borsalino in 1938 During the two first decades of the Twentieth century, Borsalino's fame grew in each continent, boosted by ad campaigns aimed at consolidating the older clientele, mostly the bourgeoisie, as well as reaching the expanding cultural and movie industries. From that moment on, Borsalino looked at new ways of brand promotion, for instance through the production of great industrial movies.
As Borsalino took this direction, Hollywood and the star system were born, together with the social character of the gangster. People like Al Capone, Lucky Luciano and John Dillinger were wearing Borsalinos and movies looked at them for inspiration. It was through the noir genre that Borsalino entered into mainstream culture, becoming a synonym for hat.
Gangsters, cops and private investigators all wore a fedora, a wide-brim hat, whose shadow made characters dark and mysterious. Borsalino spread rapidly across all genres, appearing in adventure films, romantic comedies or musicals, the hat defining roles, professions, style and class. It is an item with unique gesture capacity.
It may provide passions, tears or laughter. More than that: it's a purveyor of symbols becoming essential in cinema industry. In 1939 Nino Usuelli followed his uncle during the worst moment ever: WW2, the Nazi occupation of Italy and with the markets being closed.
The real decrease for Borsalino comes after the War and mostly during the 60's, as the cultural revolution and the making of individualism succeeding patriarchal and conservative society moved forwards. With economic boom and the following automobile's mass consumption, the hat loses his function as a daily use item and sales sink in few years. The company is sold in 1979 and Alessandria witnesses the downfall of a whole generation of hat makers.
Cinema too is facing a large renewal of both its aesthetics and values but, in contrast to hat's fate, it keeps the link with it. Therefore, it is precisely because of cinema that Borsalino enters the world of mythical objects..