The Art to wear

Skilled hands intent on embroidering precious details: this image accompanied my childhood, like that of many children here in Sicily.

Under the clear light of the skylight of her house, my grandmother patiently and precisely embroidered her precious laces, and I watched, admired, giving life to a delicate beauty of shapes and colors.

Embroidery, in Sicily and beyond, has been a hobby for women to cultivate, but sometimes also a means to support the family income or to become economically independent. But above all, it was and still is, a means to express one's creativity.

Tatting lace has always been very popular throughout the island. It is a lace made with a series of rings, knots and bows; characteristic of this technique are the pippiolini, small protrusions that form decorative elements. Tatting was known in France as early as 1750 with the term "frivolity", and reached a notable diffusion because these laces began to be applied on clothes, sheets and towels of the kit. In England, where it was known by the term "tatting" (speaking softly and thickly), it reached its heyday in the Victorian era, when the work was exported all over the world.

Today the tatting lace is back to having a new life thanks to the love and patience of a good number of artisans and artists who make beautiful jewels with this technique. They are very jealous of the techniques with which they harden their precious works. Often they add beads, semiprecious stones and rhinestones of various colors that they marry to gold and silver yarns with surprising results that, in terms of beauty and originality, have nothing to envy to jewels in more precious materials.