13A - Who's Who Reading Summary

Tale of Italian Textiles

·      Historically: valle di Arigna used recycled or scavenged materials to weave “pezzotti”, Burano made lace, flame motif in Sardinian weaving

·      3 capitals in Italian textile industry: Como, Biella, Prato

·      Como: first silk looms, increased after Spanish left Milan, collapsed with the arrival of the French, used mechanical looms

·      Biella: wool, mostly small and average family owned companies, has poor origins, labor conditions used to be awful

·      Prato: carded wool cloth, huge range of other fabrics, unique local production cycle

o   2 kinds of mills:

§  uses textile machinery and a fair number of employers

§  no plants, very few employees

o   Annual trade fair to improve the image of textiles produced in the area

·      THE textile show: Mitam, twice a year in Milan, links textile manufacturers, high fashion and clothing manufacturers

·      Ideacomo: twice a year, ready-to-wear event on Lake Como, now has a men’s fabrics show called Ideabiella

·      Textiles played large role in the formation of the “Italian Look” and the desire for Italian textiles in fashion

·      Used to be carnettisti (wholesalers and retailers), textile sales used to be dependent on designers using the manufactures fabric , literally suitcases filled with samples

o   Not enough to have good textile collections now, need a designer, industrialist, and director

·      Issues with Italian textile/fashion: manufacturers think designers purposefully narrow down deadlines, designers think textile companies of pushing too many types of textiles into too many collections

Discovering America

·      Globalization of fashion

·      Emilio Pucci, Mirsam Simonetta, Micol Fontana, Giuliana Camerino gained fame and fortune by traveling across America, ambassadors of Italian fashion

·      1956 first major display of the Italian look in America in New York

·      1958 Carli, Minister of Foreign Trade promoted and backed a tour of the US, but only reps of the labels, not the designers

·      1960 official birth of Italian fashion, shared information about Italian fashion with Americans, finally received recognition (not through a Parisian label), like the Neiman Marcus Award

What the papers said

·      opinions on Italian designers, new styles, etc.