Here's a quick picture of the Rubelli window shop in Venice.
Rubelli has been producing luxuriously amazing textiles for interior design products for over 150 years and, in more recent times, the company has also been associated with cinema since it supplied fabrics for quite a few films.
A while back costume designer and Academy Award winner Milena Canonero chose Rubelli’s textiles for example for Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette. Canonero chose from the company’s Paris-based showroom three different types of fabrics.
The first fabric selected from Rubelli’s catalogue is called ‘Fragole’ and the shop assistants at Rubelli’s will explain you it’s a rather popular one since it was chosen for other films such as Stephen Frears' Dangerous Liaisons and Milos Forman's Valmont.
This pastel coloured fabric was originally made in 1987 and was inspired by a 1700s waistcoat currently stored at the Musei Civici Veneziani.
This lisere fabrics is decorated with little strawberries, and available in two colour combinations, pink/orange/green and pink/pale blue/sky blue.
The second textile chosen is a rather heavy lampas fabric called by Rubelli “Cuoridoro” ("Golden Hearts”) that takes its name from the ancient Venetian art of dying leathers in gold nuances (the craftsmen who excelled in this art were called "Golden Hearts").
These golden materials were usually employed for walls, chairs, books and many other accessories. The floral inspiration for this fabric came again from the 1700s.
The third fabric chosen by Canonero is called “San Marco” and it’s taken from a 1987 collection. This is a rather classic type of fabric inspired to a damasked design found in a 1700s document preserved in the historical Rubelli archive in Venice. The same fabric was used for the walls of one of the rooms of the Doge’s Palace in Venice and a while back Queen Margrethe II of Denmark ordered a few metres of red "San Marco" damask for an official dress she wore in a picture used for a stamp issued by the Danish Post Office in the 90s.
Rubelli’s textiles can be rather expensive (average price: €200 per metre), because they are made in Cucciago near Como, following the highest craftsmanship standards.
Apart from 45 mechanical looms, the company also owns three hand-operated looms and a machine made in the 1700s following a project by Leonardo da Vinci.
The so-called velluto soprarizzo (ciselé velvet), a velvet with a pattern formed by contrast in cut and uncut loops, made with these machines can even cost €4,000 per metre.
Rubelli also supplied fabrics for many theatre shows and the Donghia company, an American textile company in which Rubelli is the majority shareholder, was also contacted a while back by the set designers of TV series Sex and the City. Despite not being a fan of the latter, I wouldn’t mind seeing more Rubelli textiles maybe in the second film of the Sex and the City series, at least in this way we would finally be able to see a little bit of quality rather than just some clever product placement.
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