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Chapter 6 | Innovation and community
support a social tailoring workshop managed
by professionals coming from various countries
in Africa. They will produce a collection of bags
and unique accessories, united by a unique and
exclusive “red yarn”. Ratti wax cotton can adapt
itself to any form of hemming, creating the basis
for the work of Project for People who, adding it
to jeans fabric, create a collection of unique bags
and accessories. These are born out of study
and research to show the signs which mark the
difference between one bag and another and
which are almost works of art. The new joint
collection does indeed celebrate uniqueness:
each piece recounts a beauty which is out of the
ordinary. It becomes, in everyday life, an object collections of the Antonio Ratti Foundation traverse
which is able to solicit emotions in which quality 3,300 the centuries and the most remote parts of the
is also measured in an ability to develop projects Textile fragments world, becoming a source of study and awareness
alongside mothers and children who are going 3,000 of the present open to anyone who wants to go
through the most difficult phases of their lives. more deeply into the topic.
Pattern books
Aware that successful industrial production must
Ratti and the Foundation supporting always have a strong cultural base, Antonio Ratti
culture promoted fabric in all its manifestations, paying
The Antonio Ratti Foundation was born out of particular attention to history and to the various
the desire of its founder to share his passion for cultures of the world. He always remained open
art and fabric. Over the years it has become a to new production, technological and geopolitical
place where scholars, artists and intellectuals frontiers. In 1995 the Foundation also contributed
have always been able to deepen their research to the creation of the Antonio Ratti Textile Center
and produce new work, as well as get in touch at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York: a
with the main institutions and all those who are space of 2,300 m3 housing the textile collections
passionate about art. of the American museum.
Founded in 1985 and chaired, today, by Annie In addition, the not-for-profit organisation
Ratti, it is a not-for-profit organisation aimed at Fondazione Provinciale della Comunità
disseminating the culture of beauty to the public Comasca selected and co-financed the Ratti
at large. It enriches creativity with new languages Foundation’s project to restore and digitalise
and new experiences, making the collections the pattern books of the Como manufacturer
of antique textiles in its archive available to the Guido Ravasi. The volumes, containing test
increasingly numerous exhibitions organised The Foundation cards from the 1930s, speak of a Como-based
both in Italy and abroad. houses a company which was a pioneer of the silk industry.
collection of They are therefore representative of industrial
Today, in the spaces of Villa Sucota, which production in the early 1900s. The state of
may also be reached by the Chilometro della antique fabrics conservation of the volumes was extremely
Conoscenza, (Kilometre of Awareness), the which were fragile, and without dedicated action there is a
Foundation houses a collection of antique collected by risk of losing this heritage. The objective is to
fabrics which were collected by Antonio Ratti restore their structural integrity and make them
throughout his life. More than 3,300 textile Antonio Ratti readable again, so as to bring newly to fruition,
fragments and 3,000 pattern books, across throughout from the point of view of collective sharing,
centuries and cultures, trace a historical journey his life. wisdom and knowledge. Action will therefore
that goes from archaeological fabrics to the be taken to restore the volumes, followed by
experimentation of the 1900s. a digitalisation campaign of the findings. It will
then be possible to consult these findings on the
From the Kuba fabrics of the Republic of the Foundation database. The success of Antonio
Congo to the velvet of the Tuscan Renaissance, Ratti Foundation’s candidacy in the tender was
from the Coptic fragments of the Third Century made possible by the donation from Ratti which,
to the brocades of the Eighteenth Century, from right from the start, recognised the value of the
Indian and European cashmere shawls to pattern restoration project and supported it, sharing the
books of companies active in the 1800s, the textile costs and, in this way, making financing possible.
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