Tessitura Bevilacqua is now part of a team following the same thread: textile manufacturing. We’re going to tell you which are the 5 members of the Venice Textile Manufacturers and their plans to protect the textile traditions in the Veneto region.
We’ve discussed about it with Rodolfo Bevilacqua, who’s told us why the weaving mill has joined this project.
A network of companies to save textile manufacturing in the Venetian area
The 5 protagonists of this story are 5 textile companies, located between Venice and Treviso, covering 850 years of history. In addition to Tessitura Bevilacqua, the others are:
- Lanificio Paoletti, a wool mill founded in 1795;
- Serica 1870, producing silk fabrics since 1870;
- Maglificio Giordano’s, a knitwear factory opened in 1948;
- Manifatture Tessili Vittorio Veneto, which has been making clothing fabrics for 30 years.
These companies share a top quality craft production of fabrics and clothes. As well as their strong connection with the local territory.
The weaving tradition in Veneto: why maintaining a connection with the territory
Part of these companies’ value stems from their roots in this region: “Here we have some individuals and skills that can’t be found elsewhere in the world”, explained Rodolfo Bevilacqua.
In the Veneto region, the craft of weaving dates back to centuries ago: namely to the 13th century, when Venice traded in fabrics all around the world. And then moved the manufacturing of silk, cotton and wool to the mainland.
Actually, this tradition is even older: in the Eighties, some fragments of one of the oldest Italian vertical looms were found in Vicenza. And they dated back to the 4th century BC.
The 5 Venice Textile Manufacturers have inherited this tradition. But to keep on preserving it they had only one solution: building a team.
How the Venice Textile Manufacturers was born
The idea is rooted in the friendship and mutual respect between these companies, as well as in a shared awareness: united they can aim for bigger plans. “And that’s exactly what urged us to build a network”.
Indeed, this group is not the answer to a crisis, but rather to the wish to broaden their horizons. In order to do that, they need to share their knowledge. If these companies didn’t focus on the future, they wouldn’t simply close: they would cause the end of a tradition.
Take our weaving mill, for example: if we didn’t train new weavers, nobody could use our looms. So a part of the history of Venice would be lost for good.
The aims of the business network
According to Rodolfo Bevilacqua:
We all share the will to preserve our know-how in this area and to bring some ancient – and recent – traditional textile crafts back here.
So the goal of this group of companies is to collaborate in bringing these traditions into the modern world, to let them survive. Which means, first of all, to let people know about them.
We’ve already identified some projects, which we’re just about to start. Our first test took place last May, with La via della lana (“The wool route”) in Follina.
If you’re interested in this topic, here’s the article an Italian newspaper wrote about it.
