FUMAGALLI HISTORICAL ARCHIVES 1901 - 1979
MILANO 1891 : it begins
"La Raccolta Storica di Edizioni Limitate"
fabrics around the world
England
THE GRENADINE
It's a long story coming from the period of the English Industrialization. It was in fact in 1809, in England, that an English creative called John Heathcoat built the first loom suited to produce the woven one in gauze. It seems that it was built in Loughborough a mill expressly to store the ingenious machine, ready to weave the new fabric. Some years later,in 1816, a "Luddites group" invaded the mill and burned it. There was the risk to loose the traces of a so genious creation. The Luddites was a popular movement developed in England at the beginning of XIX century, marked from the fight against the introduction of machinery. At that time people believe that the machinery could took off the work instead of the effort, as in opposite the slogan state in that period. As usual happened in the meanwhile that the world pass through the revolutions, it was really difficult and it took a big effort to make a decision. However the destruction of the mill didn’t discourage Heathcoat at all. He rebuilded the machinery improving the mechanics and increasing the performances and the precision. His tenacity gave to the world a machine that let dream the fans of stylishness and preciosity style. Probably during a trip in that English lands Germano Fumagalli get involved with it. So it was during the middle age of 1800 he was one of the first to set up in Italy those gauze hand-looms and to found the “Fumagalli & Pianca”.
"La Garza"
Grenadine is a variety of weaving that has a story full of mystery, but mostly set on the shores of Lake Como. In this beautiful area the grenadine is weaved, according to tradition, on historic wooden looms which can carry out complex designs thanks to the movement of the single wrap threads.
Grenadine fabric or “Garza a giro inglese” (English gauze) in Italian, as it is described in the international Dictionary of Textile published in 1997, is woven in a gauze weave also known as “Leno weave”. While in typical weaves the warp threads (vertical) and the weft threads (horizontal) yarns go over and under each other, grenadine has a third dimension by having another warp yarn that also cross over each other. This gives it lightness, makes it look like gauze allowing light to pass and see through and the Leno weave allows to get a strong yet sheer fabric with almost no yarn slippage or misplacement of threads.
"It is said that during the late 1800’s, it was normal practice to go into the old Fumagalli headquarter in via Sirtori in Milan to get a tie made from Fumagalli’s gauze, choosing a design from the archive and watching your tie woven and hand stitch finished."
Nowadays grenadine has been almost forgotten as a fabric to make cloths, but it is becoming one of the most valuable and luxurious way to weave ties. Grenadine ties are not only made by the usual finished silk, but they can be weave in wool, cashmere, raw shantung silk or by combination of all these. It is also composed by a wide range of solid colours and the combination between these materials and the weave give to grenadine tie the brightness and the sheen of printed ones.
Grenadine ties appears in two mainly varieties called fine gauze, or garza fina in Italian, and large gauze, or garza grossa, that has more visible texture than the other one. Grenadine is one of the most valuable and luxurious silk to weave a tie. Grenadine ties can be worn in a wide range of occasion and are particularly appreciated from every estimator; they have long been associated with powerful and iconic men across cinema history, from Sean Connery’s James Bond to Frank Underwood in House of Cards.
grenadine ties
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INDIA
THE TUSSAH
In India since about 1870, with periods of decline and recovery, the silkworm is bred. In particular this country is the homland of tussah which is mostly found in the north-eastern Deccan, in Bengal, Assam, Burma and on the Himalayan slope.
Tussah is so-called wild silk because is produced from the cocoon of wild, non-bred worms. Compared to traditional silk, tussah silk has an inimitable finesse, a great resistance and excellent recovery following traction and prolonged use of the fabric.
Tussah is a fabric with rustic and irregular appearance, with a texture of Tussah silk and a retouched and slightly irregular yarn.
ITALIA 1952 : THE GOLD TWILL
THE CHALLENGE OF Fumagalli: finding the richest fabric
Continues research from the historic Fumagalli’s textile archives. This means going back to the way that brought Fumagalli to this patent a unique yarn and finishing in the 50’s years: THE GOLD TWILL.
The constant testing brings to the creation of a really special patent: 6 strand Yarn, more intense colors, designs well-defined and a level 36 of crispness. Alberto and Mario Fumagalli patented it.
Opaque, noble, raw, dry, thick, dense and rich are some of the adjecves that characterize the Gold Twill fabric. In silk 6 strand Yarn, with a weight of more than 40 oz, is then treated with light touch of an oxidants during the finishing. Over printed on a yellow background, that makes it naturally older. The designs are deliberately opac to recreate the print by hand, so-called "planche", the tradional hand made printed "
how to wear a printed tie
The incredible richness of this fabric suggests that it can be worn on any occasion.
Ideal for clothes but also for jackets. The suitable situation is suggested more 'as the formal one in the occasions of job or of appointments
ChINA
THE SHANTUNG
Shantung silk is a rough-looking weave fabric that was born from the combination of culture and nature. It was born in Shandong a rich region in the west of China, on the shores of the yellow sea. As everybody knows the silk history in China is really long, a Legend has it that the birth of sericulture is due to Empress XI Ling Shi who discovered the qualities of the cocoon in 5000 a.c. In this region the union of two worms that contract the cocoon together, called a “duplicate”, gave birth to shantung. Shantung silk, once handcrafted on a loom, that has a lot of irregularity that seem flawed to an inexperienced eye, but which makes the fabric unique and so precious.
In conclusion Shantung is a braided fabric in taffetas with silk duplicate yarn characterized by a notable irregularity of the title. It is also performed with warp in shappe and double weft. It has been selected because the characteristic yarn that makes this fabric unique.
Ireland
donegal tweed
Now let’s fly to Ireland, considered, in combination with Scotland, the home of tweed. Tweed emerged is Scotland and Ireland as a work suit, as a way for the farmers to battle the chilly climate that characterizes those lands. Only during the nineteenth century the wearing of tweed become a gentleman’s way of dressing.
The homeland of Irish tweed is the county of Donegal, where even today it weaves on wooden looms. Donegal is a fabric with carded and buttoned weft yarn and semi-combed in the warp.
Weft and warp in donegal are dyed in various tints, in fact donegal provides for the insertion of threads with bold colours.
The characteristics of Donegal are the rough surface and the sandblasted appearance, mottled in different colors, with many wool particles, called "buttons" coloured on the surface and the sweet hand.
Its colours in ancient times also indicated the social status of its wearer: kings could use up to seven colours, poets and bards six, warriors three and servants one.
The colours had different origins: green came from heather, brown from peat, dark red from lichen scratched off rocks, purple from myrtle.
In antiquity considered a winter fabric it was mostly used for jackets and sports suits
donegal ties
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MELANGE
Melange yarn seems to have French origins, probably related to embroidery and needles. The embroidery art is now mostly widespread among women, but is well known that in the past was a man occupation.
melange ties
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The melange yarn is usually composed by 2,3 or 4 threads and every yarn is paired with other two twisted. In silk we usually couple two yarns. Different fibers proportion in the blend modify the melange yarn uniqueness. Being a different colours blend, the beauty of these yarns is that they crate different and never regular nuances in the final fabric. The best features and the uniqueness of this fabric are expressed through spotted games and effects.
image by Douglass Crockwell
Melange is a chromatic effect that is created mixing different colour fibres during the wick formation process.On the texture surface is defined a chromatic effect whereby different colour blend to each other. A texture example is: Marengo. The Marengo mélange-coloured nuance was originally produced in Spinetta Marengo, a town in the north of Italy, in the 18th century. Following the battle of Marengo in 1800 in which Napoleone Bonaparte's troops defeated the Austrian army, the grey colour of the coat worn by the general became known as Marengo.
france
JACQUARD
Jacquard fabric takes its name from Joseph Marie Jacquard, its inventor. In Lyon he invented a loom thanks to which you could create fabrics with incredible weaving possibilities. At the Exposition des Produits de Industrie National of Paris in 1801, he presented a mechanism that applied to the manual loom made mechanical the selection of wires for weave the design onto the fabric. In the middle of Industrial Revolution this modification allowed the weaver to operate on the loom without the help of assistants. In the revolutionary movements emerging throughout Europe, He was accused by textile workers for being the cause of the loss of their jobs and he was threatened with death. It took about 25 years before its first prototype was used well-functioning and on an industrial scale. First around 1820 for wool, linen and cotton, around 1845 also for silk. The final version of the machine called Jacquard, in honour of its inventor, permitted with only one movement the contemporary rise of hundreds and hundreds of wires. The jacquard mechanism on the handlooms was arranged above the swing boxes. It was then in Bologna that the Italian Vincenzi, around 1867, refined the mechanism by increasing productivity. Subsequently, the American Northrop in 1894 invented the automatic transmission of the shuttle making the frame completely automatic. It was then, in the contemporary age, that Sulzer Gebrùder introduced without- shuttle looms.
jacquard ties
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Marco Polo and the very long history of :
THE SILK
VENICE 1262
More than seven centuries have passed ... and we talk about Marco Polo, a very young boy who started one of the most famous journeys in history. His life is then told in his famous book "Il Milione". Those were the years around the end of the 1200s and in his journey between time and space, our history begin between past and present….
The legendary Silk Road
Marco Polo's father and uncle had already traveled the mythical Silk road many years ago : The long commercial route that connected Europe to Asia. Marco Polo, still a teenager, instead participated in the second trip of 1271 which brought him for the first time to China, after a long and tiring journey of two and a half years, through seas, mountains, deserts and legendary cities.
The most important meeting
Kublai Khan
A painting of Shizu, better known as Kublai Khan, as he would have appeared in the 1260s. The Kublai khan was one of China’s most famous king. He was the grandson of Genghis Khan, the founder of the Mongol Empire. In his own right, Kublai Khan is remembered for having established the Yuan Dynasty.
Kublai Khan is described from Marco Polo as a great and powerful ruler, but also one who cares about his subjects, through his charity and almsgiving to the poor, as well as his fair treatment of his subordinates. However, throughout the many anecdotes told to describe the Great Khan, there are several that seem to characterize him as not so great. These include the stories of his many wives and mistresses, as well as the corruption caused by one of his close subordinates, Ahmed.
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THE LONG WAY BACK TO VENICE
The stages of the journey
All these adventures are written into the Milione. Marco Polo talks about his incredible travels between Europe and Asia, mixing places actually visited with others of which he reports information from other travelers. For this reason there is no unanimous agreement on the actual stages of his journey.
From Far East to Italy
A precious gift that we received have transformed over the centuries as one of our best product that characterize the "made in Italy"
THE FUMAGALLI MUSEUM
INSIDE The magic world of this incredible natural Fiber
The silkworm secretes a filament, variable in length from 350 meters to about 3 km, with which it forms the cocoon that can provide protection during metamorphosis. The filament is formed by two filaments of the fibroin (present for about 80% of weight) wrapped in the sericin (about 20%). This is eliminated later during a process called "degumming". Under the microscope the fiber has a regular appearance very similar to that of synthetic fibers. Sericin can be eliminated by treating the thread of raw silk (raw silk) with hot water: this treatment improves the gloss, the flexibility and the "hand" of the fiber. Depending on the amount of sericin eliminated we can have the different kind of silk !
historical collection of limited editions
THE "COLOR PROOFS"
All the color proofs are collected in precious books carefully preserved in the Fumagalli archive since the 1895.
THE "PRINT TEST" HISTORICAL CARDS
1929 : Before engraving the pictures all the drawings are tested both on paper and on the test. Both collections are collected in the proofs section of the Historical Collection of Limited Editions
FUMAGALLI ARCHIVE STORYES
CRAFTSMANSHIP
CULTURE IN CRAFTS
The details create a group of beauty and uniqueness is made of hidden parts.
The research needs to go beyond what we already know and to discover new ways.
Curiosity is the fuel of research.
NEW CHALLENGES
The style.
The style drives us to express ourselves in simple and elegant ideas. Knowledge is the result of experiences that are handed from generation to generation. The passion makes us curious about our craft.
DETAILS, RESEARCH AND PASSION
Travels increase our knowledge by teaching the traditions of other peoples. The craftsmanship is the tendency to make best use of our manual gifts.