In Filoforme - Abstract ENG

FILO FORME anno 8 n. 16

Personalization of the Fashion Product: LASABUI
Stefanella Sposito (page 2)

As a phenomenon of usage, fashion is in step with the evolutions and the on-going transformations within its own social and economic context. Today, firms function in a global economy that is characterized by a greater variety of goods/ services and generalized consumption that is in constant flux between invention and imitation. The concept of personalization moves the production of custom-made clothing, endorsing a search for the “unique piece”. This tendency is exemplified by LASABUI, a firm created in 1995 by Valeria Bosco, an Italian designer who creatively treats the materials she uses, enhancing both fabric and clothing design by bringing back into vogue the traditional reserve dyes typical of handmanufactured ethnic articles –with important differences – throughout the Far East: China, Japan, India, Indonesia and Africa. Dyes in these geographical areas were uniformly applied to the cloth in a single colour, but also were used only on specific areas of the finished fabric, or even just on the threads in order to produce chromatic variations while the work was underway. LASABUI interventions fully reach a re-elaboration of the traditional shibori, the plangi, the batik, but they also make use of the airbrush, dripping, and offset printing techniques, opening the way for the fusion of interesting graphic and pictorial effects. By means of the historic “recovery” that radically modifies form and content, coupled with a jump in paradigm perspective, today’s designer can reach a re-interpretation or re-visitation of the fashion object. Just like a chameleon it is re-offered as a new hybrid, half way between something famous and familiar, and consequently, something that is very reassuring, something completely different and unusual, and thus, something that can’t be given up.

A thread of poetry II: Indian and Kashmiri Costumes. The embroidered chogha (men’s coat) in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art
Elisa Gagliardi (page 11)

This is the second article in the series on “A Thread of Poetry” dedicated to the manufacture of Indian and Kashmiri textiles. The figurative embroidered motifs take their inspiration from Persian and Indian literature. The first part of this short study describes the types of garments that are characteristic in the history of Indian costume, such as the jama, the angarakha, the pijama, and the chogha. The second portion of the study analyses and describes a chogha made in black pashima in the Islamic Art collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The subject of the embroidery is taken from the heroic poem Khamseh (The Quinary) by Nizami.

Theatrical Costume in the Baroque Period
Doretta Davanzo Poli (page 18)

The Baroque theatrical costume is the epitome of all costumes; fanciful, exotic, and anachronistic, mixing ideas and themes from different historical cultures and periods. Italy has been a creative centre in this sector as a result of the many courts, where theatrical presentations and musical performances were staged. In the fifteenth-century book “Libro del Sarto” (the tailors’ book) various theatrical costumes are presented, but the creativity of Ottavio Rinuccini, Nicola Sabbatini and Tommaso Borgonio gives a definite impulse to the genre. The costumes are not much different from coeval fashion, even though they were weighted down with a profusion of decoration and often accessorized with masks; when performances were held at court, the nobles often required that their stage costumes reflect their social rank, which was often different from the character they portrayed.

The support stretcher for two embroidered silk altar-frontals
Elena De Sabbata, Angela Pizzolongo (page 23)

The support stretcher adopted for mounting two embroidered silk altar-frontals is discussed. The works belong to the Duomo of Santa Maria Assunta in Gemona del Friuli, and they have recently been moved to the Museum of the Parish and the Treasure of the Duomo (Museo della Pieve e Tesoro), The two altar-frontals are the work of two sisters, Cassandra and Antonia Vintani, who made them in 1854 and 1856. The frontals are in ivory taffeta, with decorative motifs embroidered in polychrome silk thread and gold and silver spun and laminate metallic threads. After the restoration treatment on the textile portions of the works, the wooden stretchers were addressed. The goal was to improve the structural conditions of the support stretcher, and to provide it with a tension system. Using a unique system, the methods traditionally applied to paintings were translated to the needs of a textile by the use of an expandable stretcher. The planning and construction of these stretchers contributed inspirational principles to the broad, lively debate on problems inherent to the structural supports for paintings on canvas. Ever since the 1970s, the use of stretchers for paintings has witnessed varying solutions, all with the same technical goal of keeping canvasses flat through flexible tensioning systems. The re-adaptation of the old support stretchers for the two altarfrontals resulted in their modification, allowing them to become an active part of the textile support, guarantying their conservation and transmission to the future.