By Rafe Calder
A lake gives water. That is the plain reason the sources give for silk at Como, and the rest of the story is a set of dates that do not all line up.
Why Como
A Cooper Hewitt museum page on a Como sample book says Lake Como and nearby Alpine streams give the region plenty of water to support sericulture, and that the nearby Po River Valley had extensive mulberry cultivation that fed silkworms. That is the museum’s explanation, and we have not found it in a second source.
When it began
The dates do not agree. The Cooper Hewitt page says Como became a silk centre during the sixteenth century. The Fondazione Antonio Ratti, which holds a collection of Como’s textile history, says silk production began in the fifteenth century and that industrial manufacture flourished from the middle of the nineteenth century. The Italian national tourism site says Ludovico Sforza, called the Moor, started mass mulberry cultivation around 1400 and that production was industrialised in the eighteenth century with spinning and weaving mills. The fifteenth, sixteenth and around-1400 starts cannot all be right, and we have not found a source that settles it, so we show the three accounts as they stand.
A company that lasted
The Ratti Foundation says FISAC, the Fabbriche Italiane di Seterie Alberto Clerici, operated from 1906 to 1990 and was among the first factories to make luxury figured fabrics. The Cooper Hewitt page says the firm was earlier known as Fabbriche Italiane di Seterie Clerici Braghenti and Company, moved to Milan under the acronym FISAC in 1932, and persisted until about 1990. It says a large conglomerate absorbed it during the 1990s. The two pages agree on 1990 and differ on the founding detail, and we show both.
The Cooper Hewitt page also says the company exhibited at the 1904 St. Louis Exposition, and that its twentieth-century strategy was diversification by buying silk and velvet mills and print and dye works.
What the sample book shows
The museum describes a late-nineteenth-century sample book with black silk fabrics patterned in red, blue, turquoise and purple, intended for men’s formal wear: waistcoats, smoking jackets and coat linings.
Printing and design
The Ratti Foundation says the district specialised in luxury figured fabrics for women’s clothing and men’s accessories, and that printing developed strongly in the 1950s and 1960s, during Italy’s economic boom. It says success rested on three things: technology, expert craftsmanship and textile designers. It names two designers: Guido Ravasi, who worked between the World Wars, and his son Giuseppe, who collaborated with the fashion designer Emilio Pucci. We name them because both are historical figures in a museum’s account. The foundation says it holds FISAC sample books acquired in 2009.
The thread
The tourism site says a silkworm’s thread reaches 1,500 metres in length before it is cut and joined with others. It says silkworm breeding no longer carries historical weight in Como, while the printing works and silk factories still supply international fashion houses with ties, scarves and fabrics because of their quality. The tourism site is promotional. It also says where much of the thread now comes from, and we leave that line out.
Museums
The tourism site names a Silk Museum with old machinery and silkworm exhibits, and the Museo Studio del Tessuto, which it says holds more than 3,300 exhibits and over 2,500 books in Villa Sucota. It also names a mulberry growing centre at Cassina Rizzardi as an educational facility. We have not checked what any of these offers now.
Dates in order
The sources give these dates. Around 1400, according to the tourism site, mass mulberry planting begins. The fifteenth century, according to the foundation, silk production begins. The sixteenth century, according to the museum, Como becomes a silk centre. The eighteenth century, for industrial spinning and weaving mills, according to the tourism site. The mid-nineteenth century, for flourishing industrial manufacture, according to the foundation. In 1904, the exhibition at St. Louis. In 1906, FISAC’s start, according to the foundation. In 1932, the move to Milan, according to the museum. The 1950s and 1960s, for printing growth. About 1990, the company’s end. Each date comes from one source, apart from 1990, which two give.
Three kinds of source side by side
The museum page is about one object, a sample book, and explains the district around it. The foundation page is about a collection and the industry behind it. The tourism page is about visiting the district. They overlap on FISAC and on the district’s reputation, and they do not overlap on dates before 1900, which is where the disagreements sit.
What kind of sources these are
A museum object page and a foundation’s collection page are institutional sources. The tourism site is promotional. None is a mill’s own account, and we name no living maker or firm that trades today.
What the sources do not say
None says how many mills or workers the district has now, how a printed length is produced step by step, or how a buyer can tell Como-made cloth from cloth printed elsewhere. We have not filled those gaps.
What it means for a buyer
Our view is that “Como” works as a district name, not a guarantee. Ask where the cloth was woven, where it was printed and where it was finished, since the sources describe a district of separate mills, printing works and dye works. And treat a story about mulberry trees and local silkworms as history, since the tourism site says breeding no longer carries weight there.
Where sources differ, we show each: when silk began and who founded the firm. We list them in the check file.
Roam first. Shop later.