Italy June 2024
This year’s textile tour took me to Italy; not a place I thought I would be back to after the fun I’ve had travelling the more atypical places like Uzbekistan and Morocco (more on that later), but it was just as amazing.
My fabulous tour guide, Glenda (Boutique Tours and Travel), was able to get backstage passes to some of the oldest weaving houses across Italy to see machines that were designed by Leonardo Da Vinci which are still in operation today. Run by third and fourth generation Italians, fashion houses like Fendi and Dior use these weaving masters to make authentic Italian textiles that become the most exquisite garments, handbags, home furnishings and the like.
Watching the weavers employ age-old techniques such as using foot pedals and hand-held spindles, and seeing how labour intensive it is to make 12cm of fabric in a 6-hour shift, certainly gives you an appreciation as to why the articles made in these elaborate fabrics are so expensive. Learning about their design origins (some dating back centuries), noting the use of blueprints or hole-punched pattern-pieces used to formulate the designs, and observing how it takes over a day to rethread one of these grand machines, is awe-inspiring to witness.
Through talking with the artisans we met, from textiles-weavers to the lacemakers, ceramicists and glass blowers, I have learnt the underside of their stories; many of the next generation are not keen to join the family business. This situation is not new, but sadly it means that some of these establishments, along with their history, knowledge and secrets that have been handed down through the generations, are dying out.
After having seen the workmanship behind the beauty, I am looking forward to making their divine cloth into one-of-a-kind pieces of wearable-art. The outcome, I hope, is that the wearer will feel equally as unique and remarkable as these individually constructed garments, where your age and where you come from have no bearing, it is just you feeling good about being you.
New coats made from these magnificent fabrics will be available in 2025.
