Posing for our photographer among the mannequins of her Glamour of Italian Fashion exhibition, curator Sonnet Stanfill, with her dark hair and even darker eyes, looks every bit the Dolce Vita she has spent the past two years researching.

‘It hasn’t been done in-depth like this before,’ she explains, of the three-room odyssey through Italian designer fashion that opens today at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. ‘There has been a focus on individual designers, there have been photography shows. But here, we’re covering nearly 70 years in 100 outfits.’

You can imagine the names involved in such a whistle-stop tour - Prada, Dolce & Gabbana, Gucci, Armani, Valentino; many of them were present for a gala dinner at the museum earlier this week. But the show also covers many others now forgotten, whose groundwork helped to make Italy one of the foremost countries when it comes to textiles, leather, fur and artisanal crafts, not to mention the slick marketing of those into a commercial – and essentially, fabulous – consumer overview.

‘After the war, in 1951, this impresario Mr. Giorgini pulled in all of his connections and got people to come over and watch a fashion presentation in his house,’ Stanfill explains. ‘That’s when Italian fashion was put on the map.’

And the exhibition opens with pieces from this time, from a full-skirted, strapless ballgown in oyster silk by the designer Simonetta (who spent much of World War Two imprisoned by Mussolini for anti-fascist sentiment) to the Juliet-necklined and bejeweled numbers from Maria Antonelli, the label for homegrown prima donnas of the silver screen during the 50s.

There’s plenty of fantasy fashion in this exhibition - current season Valentino couture, for example, and a hand-painted dress from Dolce’s bespoke Alta Moda range – but the ‘glamour’ of its title can be found in classic daywear too. It’s a concept that Stanfill believes is inherent to the whole Italian mode of dressing rather than limited to special occasions.

‘I just have this image in my mind of a summer’s night in Rome,’ she smiles, ‘seeing an Italian woman go out for dinner in a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, with a single gold chain around her neck, her beautiful tan and her strappy sandals. So simple and yet so elegant.’

‘There’s an instinct to dress well and appropriately,’ she continues. ‘The Italians don’t like subversion in their fashion – there’s an element of classic good taste that very much surrounds the idea of Italian fashion. It’s possible to buy something and imagine wearing it in ten years – a MaxMara coat, a pair of beautiful Ferragamo shoes.’

Originally from the States, but born into an Italian family, Stanfill studied in Florence, during which time she learned the language and cemented her interest in the country’s style scene. She then worked as a buyer (‘the New York fashion industry was really hard!’ she laughs) before taking the Couthauld Institute’s history of dress course and becoming a curator.

The family she lodged with during her year abroad, she recalls, went out shopping for clothes together once a year, and bought classic pieces with no notion of disposable ‘fast fashion’.

‘Italians believe in the quality of ‘made in Italy’,’ she says of another of the exhibition’s themes, the almost guild-like system of production and craft within the country. ‘That’s one of the really unique aspects – it’s a network of regional specialisms. You have Como silks, wool and leather goods from Tuscany and Prato.’

And there is space within the exhibition devoted to those who ply these trades, in a series of interviews that Stanfill has conducted and which are available to watch online, with the likes of Italian Vogue’s Franca Sozzani and designer Angela Missoni, but also with a leather technician who works at Gucci and Neapolitan tailor Mariano Rubinacci, whose atelier is now welcoming young apprentices.

‘I think the Italians are quite concerned about Milan’s future and the future of Italian-made,’ Stanfill nods. ‘When you have Suzy Menkes writing that London is the laboratory, where does that leave Milan? I thought it was important to bring that debate within the four walls of the museum.’

Key to that debate perhaps are the young designers Stanfill has chosen to represent their country: Stella Jean, whose Burkina Faso-influenced textiles are all made at home in Italy and who counts Giorgio Armani as something of a mentor, and Fausto Puglisi, once a theatrical costume designer, now creative director of Parisian house Ungaro and also maintaining his own brand, which shows in Milan. He drives the length and breadth of the country to source artisans to make his vibrant and cartoonish pieces. And he has donated a show look of his not only to the exhibition, but also to the museum’s permanent archive.

‘There’s no equivalent to the V&A in Italy,’ Sonnet Stanfill explains, having worked for the Cromwell Road institution for 15 years. ‘And it’s a really interesting time to be launching the exhibition – what with Jane Reeve chief exec at the Camera Moda and a new prime minister, the youngest ever. It’s a real opportunity to cover new ground.’

That’s as may be, but one of the striking things in this exhibition is how Italian designers make use, with ever more verve, of the heritage and history they have at their backs too.

The Glamour of Italian Fashion runs at the V&A museum from today until 27 July, information and tickets available here