"CAVOUR" FABRIC
On display the development of a contemporary technical fabric starting off
from a historical drawing: from the “Serra e Carli” archival collection
at the FiDiVi Tessitura Vergnano SpA for the city of Chieri,
its Piazza Cavour and the Textile Museum.
A twentieth-century design by the "Serra & Carli" studio, a blue and sand fabric produced by FiDiVi Tessitura Vergnano SpA, thirty-eight umbrellas made with the "Cavour fabric" to embellish the "living room" of the historic center of Chieri. All this is told in the exhibition on the "Cavour Fabric" which opens on Thursday 21 July, at 10:30, in the "Porta del Tessile" hall (via Santa Clara 10/A), while at 11:30 it will follow
the inauguration of the umbrellas in Piazza Cavour.
The Mayor of Chieri Alessandro SICCHIERO, the Councilor for Public Works and Urban Furniture Flavia BIANCHI, for Commerce and Promotion of the Territory Elena COMOLLO and for Culture Antonella GIORDANO, the President of the
Chierese Foundation for Textiles and for the Textile Museum Melanie ZEFFERINO and the Design Director of FiDiVi Tessitura Vergnano SpA Enrico VERGNANO.
The selected design, B-1282, dates back to the second half of the 20th century and is part of the Collection of the famous Chierese studio "Serra & Carli", now kept in the Historical Archives of the Chierese Foundation for Textiles and the Museum of Textile: an imaginative motif in which floral and geometric elements in light blue stand out against a blue background.
The choice was made jointly by the city administration, the Chieri merchants, the top management of the Textile Foundation and Enrico and Giuseppe Vergnano, respectively Design Director and Chief Executive Officer of FiDiVi
Tessitura Vergnano SpA, a leading company in the furnishing, suitcase, contract and automotive sector, which is currently based in Poirino, but was founded in Chieri in the 1940s.
The FiDiVi Style Center conducted, pro-bono and in a very short time, the study of the design in question and the subsequent technical and aesthetic development aimed at the production of a fabric compliant with the specific requests for the covering of handcrafted wooden outdoor umbrellas made by the company iWird srl Danieli of Vicenza – in fact, this fabric requires particular characteristics of elasticity and resistance to light and
to abrasion.
«From a technical point of view - explains Massimo Quattrocolo, R&D Director of FiDiVi - the fabric is identified as textured satin, double-face, with a weave of 32 threads per cm, made on a Jacquard loom using, both in the weft and in the warp, dope-dyed polyester. The fabric was completed with a finishing aimed at ensuring the maximum possible resistance to UV rays and atmospheric agents, as well as mechanical stress».
From an aesthetic point of view, the FiDiVi fabric is a contemporary interpretation of the original tempera painted by the Serra & Carli studio (B1282) and alternates the blue color, an identifying reference to the gualdo, with a sand nuance in harmony with the tones of the Baroque architecture of Piazza Cavour.
«The exhibition tells the story of the development of a fabric High tech con-temporary starting from a historic design – says Melanie Zefferino – The original designs, fabric samples, twelve photographs, a large strip of about ten meters with all the studies conducted on design B-1282 with the variants in different sizes are exhibited and different colours, and videos illustrating weaving on a Jacquard loom. With this initiative, the Foundation on the one hand renews the link with the city and the textile companies that set it up in 1997, and on the other enhances its archival and historical-artistic heritage by making it available to creativity and industry of the present in a Chieri still protagonist in the world of textiles and its challenges».
