laser machines that screen designs on fabric (up to an 8 color process)
the finishing factory
On Friday, Rosita (my advisor in the Program) took me to the nearby city of Prato, the center of textile production in Italy. Her family owns a finishing mill and her hilarious and generous brothers took us on a tour of the factory and explained the processes that go into finishing fabrics before the cut and sew process. There were denim tumblers that added texture to the material (think stone washing and softening), a machine covered in diamond heads that produced incredibly smooth silk, and even the bolts that will eventually become part of Louis Vuitton's Winter 2010-2011 handbag collection.
Afterwards we toured their friends' silkscreening factory where we watched them create colorful bolts of fabric from white bolts, learn about different effects that can be applied to fabrics, and watched the by-hand silkscreen process (the same one I used to create the first THE BEARON t-shirts!). He showed us fabrics like a cotton/viscose blend that when treated with soda water in a patterned design burned away the cotton, leaving only the viscose and creating a raised cotton design against the viscose background. Everyone was so kind and spent a great deal of time (and patience) as we asked questions and translated.
rows of silkscreens
a cheetah print burn out technique
Then Rosita's wonderful brothers took us out for a delicious lunch. They warned that we were headed to a gas station but to trust them. We walked into the equivalent of a BP convenience store and there was a long table set for us with nine chairs. A few of their friends drove in to join us and we had a FEAST. There was antipasti and fresh bread, bottles of wine, sundried tomatoes, and the most delicious carbanara of my life. The pasta was made without cream, relying entirely on the flavors of the bacon, eggs, and oil. To Die For. You would never have guessed it from the surroundings, but we had a beautiful (definitely top 5 meals in Italy) afternoon, laughing and meeting new Italians, translating between broken English and my terribly broken Italian. It was incredible. Simply incredible.
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