Week 22 - Fashion of the past - "Tailoring"

We are shaped and fashioned by what we love

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

 Portrait of a Lady ('La Dama in Rosso'), about 1556-60

by Giovanni Battista Moroni

National Gallery, London

 Giovanni Battista Moroni, c.1525, Albino - 1778, Bergamo,

was a North Italian painter of the Late Renaissance period.

He is also called Giambattista Moroni.

Best known for his elegantly realistic portraits of the local nobility and clergy,

he is considered one of the great portrait painters of sixteenth century Italy.

 The Gentleman in Pink, 1560

Palazzo Moroni, Bergamo

 Woman in a Red Dress, c. 1560

Gemaeldegalerie Dresden, Germany

Portrait of a Soldier, 1555-59

Museo del Prado, Madrid

The Tailor, 1570-1575

 
Giovanni Battista Moroni's The Tailor - a portrait of a man in cream doublet and red hose,
looking steadily and sensitively out of the picture as he poses, scissors in hand,
to cut a piece of black cloth - is one of the greatest paintings in the National Gallery, London.

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THE TAILOR:  IN MEMORIAM

by Irene Musillo Mitchell

Written in honor of her father, Michael Angelo Musillo,

who was born in 1899 in Motescaglioso (Basilicata), Italy.

He emigrated to America in 1920; he lived in the Bronx,

and died on August 13, 1956.

Here two stanzas from the poem:

I

I am a tailor from the old world.

My craft is dying.  Each tailor who goes is an end - let it be.

The old world is crumbling; there is no place in the new,

For the honored work, of an old humanity:

For the slow, patient labor of a simpler day;

For the personal, the fine work, detail - feeling becomes form;

And what is a man but his touch, his expressiveness through his metier.

The old customer who understood quality, goods, design,

Who was pleased with fastidious workmanship is passing away.

The new, accustomed to facsimile, duplicate, the ready-made,

Dulled by the prevalence of mediocrity is unable to evaluate.

He wears my coat but he is wanting in stature; his measure is small:

The new world extolling mechanical power has minimized him.

But my work is rooted in traditions affirming his unlimited potential.

My coat is cut to the man, his tone, his stance, his gesture -

The man at his best.  Stitches, darts, facing develop a theme.

Seams join, hems turn, the iron defines - a world is configurated:

I shape my life into design, the tailor and the boy who dreamed....

Brioni School still life

VI

I am a tailor from the old world.

My craft is dying.  Each tailor who goes is an end - let it be.

Declining, caught between modernity and its won flickering light;

Understanding progress, non-comprehending its willingness to subdue humanity;

Man, individual endeavor, its measure of the significance of life:

An opus mastered, a flawless coat - man bringing into form:

The children hand in hand on Easter morning,

In suits that poured from me like a fevered song:

Non-comprehending its willingness to efface diversity,

To integrate cultures into wholes without quality,

without color, without scope:

I am the cobblestone street in the ancient world,

The boy intoning Latin absorbing the old church modes.

(I find this very true and touching)

from:

  A documantery on Italian Master Tailors

more

here

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The Old Tailor

Photo by Mehmet Akim

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The "new" Old Tailor
..."Mark Hutter works by the light of the window"...

The Colonial Williamsburg Official History Site

  The art of cutting

The word "tailoring" means "the art of cutting" in many languages, and indeed,

it is the cut of the fabric that makes...... read more  here

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Ready for "tailoring"

Old French Farmers Linen from the 19th Century

Chanvre - pure hemp - dyed in a kind of dark grey, coarse weave

suitable for pillows, upholstery, table runners, other small projects, or...and...

Chanvre - pure hemp - here in a kind of medium grey

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 left hand side: pure linen with hemp in a kind of light grey (not blueish, fine to medium weave)

on the right: Chanvre - pure hemp in a earth color - beige, see photo below

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 Top: Linen with hemp in light grey (not blueish)

middle and bottom: pure hemp

 this photo shows nearly the right color of the linen with hemp(bottom piece)

The mesurement of this sheet: about 100" long by circa 75" wide, with center seem, all hand stitched

Weight: 1,8 Kg  -  suitable for all kind of projects...pillows, curtains, napkins, table cloth......

and cloths like blouses, trousers......

 here again nearly the right color - its so difficult to photograph natural linen!

(the photo is a close-up, the weave is fine to medium!)

To give an idea about the quality: The weight of a sheet this size in pure hemp will be around 2 to 2,3 Kg

to be continued.....slowly but surely!

From the catalogue of  the Mutual Tailor Company of Chicago, 1916

(source: internet)

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Bonne Semaine!