Embroidery

The absolute dedication required by embroidery's sophisticated, precious handiwork has rendered it increasingly rare: as a craft, it calls for mental discipline even more than physical, and for infinite patience, virtues so far from contemporary, so eccentric in a society that wants everything delivered at once, that of course embroidery has come into the spotlight again. "Embroidery: Italian Fashion" follows the technique's recent rise in a national culture known for its opulence and emotion, and brings readers the experience of both with a soft, embroidered cover. Inside, the details of micro-paillettes, mirrors, bugle beads, ribbons and implausibly thin threads produce virtuosities, coups de thibtre, surprising elegances. Embroidery is a door on a wondrous, opulent dimension where light plays with the richness of threads, and "Embroidery" shows its meaning transformed by the violence of modern lines and gestures, like the burnt Swarovski crystals that are Riccardo Tisci's hallmark. When Antonio Marras presented a skirt at his first Milan show in which the embroidery seemed to allude to beginner's work, to the gauze on which little girls once learned to sew, he asked his embroiderers to imitate this style, calling it "wrongstitch." And those extraordinary craftswomen, accustomed to perfection, learned just what feeling, what fascination can be concealed in an apparent mistake. The embroiderers and their colleagues remain the silent but ever-present heroines of this revival, their handiwork recalling the human touch at every glance. Includes work from Anna Molinari, Blumarine, Dolce & Gabbana, Emilio Pucci, Gianfranco Ferri, Marni, Roberto Cavalli, Valentino and Versace.