“La storia siamo noi”. Moda e cultura popolare in Annarella ‘benemerita soubrette’

The paper analyzes the persona and wardrobe of Annarella (Antonella Giudici), the showgirl and model who has been the female member of the Italian punk band CCCP – Fedeli alla linea for decades. Through her clothes and style, the paper discusses how she has tackled the many contradictions associated with gender and women’s condition. The paper adopts the lens of fashion to investigate Annarella’s role and contribution to both the band’s aesthetics and ethics. Her approach to clothes is here considered in relation with the depoliticization of subcultures and the neoliberalism of 1980s Italian fashion. The paper also intends to address the under-researched relationships between CCCP and fashion in the twenty-first-century’s resurgence of critical impulses against cultural elitism.