Tessere Weave

Fabric is to Roberta Furlanetto what oil and canvas are to painters. In fact, she might well take a canvas, fray it and weave it into other textiles with threads and precious stones. Furlanetto constructs by hand creations that can't quite be called fashion, and yet fashion houses from Christian Lacroix to Dior to Ungaro have incorporated her works into their clothes. Combining embroidery, gold, wool, lace, solvents and sometimes ceramic glazes, her patterns burst with color. Some are meant to be hung on walls, some on models. This vivid book shows Furlanetto's inventions both on their own and as part of the clothing collections of various designers, particularly Lacroix. As Paola Nicolin writes in the text, "the basic grammar of her work speaks the language of art: violated materials, collage, tears and inlay, chromatic contrasts, brushstrokes and spatters."