Refashioning Experiments: Renaissance Weaving

How were the fabrics of the Renaissance made? What kinds of skills did early modern weavers use to create fashionable new materials? Most fabrics in the early modern period were woven on looms by professional weavers. To create the elaborate brocades, delicate satins, and plush velvets so fashionable in this era was both complicated and time consuming, and weaving was a highly developed art. It can be difficult to appreciate the ingenuity of weavers when we observe surviving textiles, without closely looking at the ways the threads were manipulated to create visual and tactile effects. In order to learn how to look and understand the remarkable surviving textiles of this era, we took a week-long workshop at Fondazione Arte della Seta Lisio in Florence, Italy. Read more :