Embroidery: Italian Fashion

In the middle of the 1990s Italian fashion rediscovered decoration, a taste for embellishment and the pleasure of ornament. Both the grand masters of the made in Italy tradition and the new designers turned, more and more, to embroidery as the fundamental inspiration for their clothes. New embroidery covers all the trends of the last ten years of Italian fashion, from ethno-folk to conceptual, from ecleticism to deconstructivism, from romantic to gothic. This book illustrates, through a rich collection of photographs and the words of Italian fashion designers, the true history of new embroidery and the inspiration behind the embroidery of their collections. Embroidery is a door open on a wondrous, opulent dimension where light plays with the richness of the threads. The modern violence of gesture transforms the substance of the material, like the burnt Swarovskis that are a hallmark of Riccardo Tisci. Precious and sophisticated, embroidery is a timeless art which time renders increasingly rare due to the absolute dedication it requires - mental even more than physical - concentrated on the minuscule and the perfect, and to the infinite patience it demands, virtues that are so far from contemporary, so eccentric in a society that wants everything and wants it at once (Giusi Ferre).