Those hand-woven sheets in Chieri (yes, today)

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That place where everything begins and where everything ends, today we want to tell about it for its identity impact. Over the centuries, the bed has become a symbolic object, full of functions and has certainly influenced every generation since ancient times, also changing in its aesthetics. A place of birth, love, rest, but also of suffering, it has always been celebrated as a "means", as a "place" that hosts on board some "human" of which it characterizes the moment, becoming a means of visual narration of the body, of intimacy and of power and therefore a mirror of society and its transformations. Fashion last - history, literature and theater first - have indirectly celebrated its use and function and therefore, through this "piece of furniture", we can tell moments of life of every society, including ours. These are precise photographs present in the collective imagination and of each of us. The first one that certainly comes to mind is that of Cleopatra lying on a chaise-longue perhaps waiting for Mark Antony with whom she will then share the tragic end.

This flash, for an entire generation, coincides with the poster of the film “Cleopatra”, by Joseph Mankiewicz, with fabulous protagonists Liz Taylor and Richard Burton who act and at the same time live in parallel their stormy relationship. This love story that ends in tragedy inspires in literature first William Shakespeare and then Vittorio Alfieri, a marital bed first, which transforms into a tragic bed of death later, according to a pattern that as we will see will repeat itself. The second image is that of “the blue room”, a painting by Pablo Picasso in which an uninhibited model poses next to a bed perhaps just made up, intent on washing herself. In the apparent daily nature of the gesture, the painting actually hides a secret, with infrared you discover a painting within the painting, probably the face of its patron. And first Goya with the two opposite “Majas” because “vestida” and then “desnuda” but also softly lying on their beds and the famous marble by Antonio Canova with Paolina Bonaparte lying on a triclinium like Venus, telling love and beauty together. Another extraordinary snapshot impressed in everyone's mind is that of Verdi's Traviata, the Opera in which the bedroom becomes for Violetta the stage for all possible love and suffering . The last clip is that of Marina Abramovic in her famous “Rest Energy” in which the body at rest becomes itself in some way a bed.

But let's come to us now, the most intimate part where everyone can unleash their memories here, first loves perhaps listening to Umberto Tozzi singing "Gloria, escape without making noise / from work from your bed / from the steps of an altar", the last days at high school before her final exams - in which I saw my daughter again a few days ago sitting with her friends rehearsing crossed legs on her bed - and then the pandemic, a moment that will mark a before and after for each of us, as well as the last memory of grandparents who pass away at home while we are still children, but also the beauty of the time when we played with our brothers and sisters building shelters between the sheets and pillows or the magnificent relaxation of our bodies on a sun lounger. And then the bed, an invisible icon of Fashion brought to the catwalk by John Galliano, Vivienne Westwood or Viktor&Rolf through lace, lingerie, padded blankets and cushions worn as clothes, the aesthetics of the bed is transformed into an ironic and provocative language between modesty and desire between what is seen and what is hidden . Or more recently the Pyjamas cleared in splendid daytime outfits by Dolce&Gabbana, Alessandro Michele or the silk twill garments recently created in collaboration with Highgrove Gardens by Daniel Lee for Burberry linked to the delicate and fundamental ecosystem of bees.

Now let's talk for a moment about the extraordinary things we do every day in Italy and here is the example, unknown to most, of one of the most beautiful Italian SMEs, Quagliotti: who knows that the best sheets in the world are still produced and woven on a loom in the Turin hills near Chieri ? But this is one of the last examples of true "Made in Italy", when in reality the history of the bed for centuries has been linked to Italy with the production of the most refined bed linen in very fine cottons and linens, percale or "eggshell", always in cotton and linen satin. Until the 1980s, these fabrics were produced in Italy and were of high quality ; then, the importation of cotton canvases from emerging countries began gradually, followed by satins woven with single yarns, until today where over 90 percent of the fabrics used for home and hospitality linens are unfortunately imported. The same goes for linen, even in this case there were excellent fine linens woven in Italy which today have almost completely disappeared if it were not for the Linificio Canapificio Nazionale, this despite the fact that the harvests in recent years have been poor and of low quality.

But there is another big change that has impacted our country where traditionally the bed was made with sheets, a wool blanket (I remember the historic companies like Marzotto and Somma) with a white or colored cotton piquet bedspread on top. Quilts were used that could also be made of silk and stuffed with carded wool. Everything was made with natural fibers. In the nineties, starting from Northern Italy, they began to use feather duvets like in the Nordic countries. A bottom sheet and a duvet bag and the bed is made. In central and southern Italy, also due to the climate, they also use a quilt (quilted bedspread) often not natural but stuffed with polyester . Beyond the utility, the beauty of the linens of which we were masters has been lost, as well as our embroiderers who were true artists of hand embroidery like Evelina Bellini in Florence, who died in poverty. We have not been able to pass on to the new generations what was a precious profession, let's try not to do it with what is still unique.

We need a large mapping and schools to preserve these professions . And if we think about how quickly the bed is changing its function for the new generations, well this becomes an extension of the self, the place from which you watch series on Netflix, the place where relationships are built and sexting is done. Young people often invent content from there with which they tell their friends and on platforms like Tik tok or Instagram and therefore the bed as a "cult place" that becomes a set to decorate, show, set up and this affects the brands that have been intercepting this need for some time now and are starting to move accordingly. We quickly go from selling a product to selling a way of life, just think how much today the best luxury brands invest in physical places, in stores that are now complete homes and no longer just product stores. Today the brand is represented in hotels, on beach resorts, in clubs, on yachts as well as in restaurants or sports and therefore the experience becomes a substitute for the sole univocal consumption of a product, which is no longer satisfying. After all, we are moving without realizing it from a model of consumerism to what we might call "experientialism". We Italians, lovers of beauty and well-made products, of the iconic "Made in Italy" in all sectors of Lifestyle, remember that the only way is to act together to intercept what is happening in the world . Only by responding better as a business system and as a country to this epochal change in the way of living and therefore of purchasing will we be able to sleep soundly.

Luca Sburlati, President of Confindustria Moda

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