---
node: fashion_risorgimento
type: fashion
slug: risorgimento_fashion
title: "Fashion in the Risorgimento"
lead: "In the Risorgimento, Italian dress followed the Paris-led fashion of the rest of Europe, but the red shirt of Garibaldi's volunteers became a political garment symbolising unification."
published: 2026-07-28
updated: 2026-07-28
image_file: risorgimento_fashion.jpg
image_source: "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Portrait_of_Giuseppe_Garibaldi_(1861),_by_Silvestro_Lega.jpg"
image_author: "Silvestro Lega"
image_license: "Public domain"
change: "Created as a fashion sub-page under the history section, with a period image (italy region)"
requester: internal
reason: "Per the owner's decision, fashion lives under each history era"
---

## Overview

Nineteenth-century fashion was led from Paris, and women wore the crinoline and then the bustle silhouette.

## Key garments and style

Elite dress followed Paris, but what was distinctive here was political dress: the red shirt (camicia rossa) of Garibaldi's Thousand became the symbol of unification, and its name spread into Europe as the "Garibaldi" blouse for women.

## Transition

With the Kingdom proclaimed in 1861, dress came to be told within the frame of a united Italy.