A hand holds a hoop with a flower embroidered on linen, small scissors and a skein of rust-coloured thread on the table.

Textiles and clothing

Embroidery

Embroidery is writing on cloth. Needle and thread draw on the base fabric motifs that may be geometric, floral, figurative or symbolic, and that turn a common cloth into an object of value. It is an art of patience and absolute precision — a single wrong stitch on an important garment can mean hours of unpicking — and it has a deeply female vocation in the Italian popular tradition, although male schools exist (sacred embroidery, military embroidery). In Tuscany embroidery has distinct and deep-rooted traditions, some of them of international standing.

An uphill village lane, an open door revealing a table laid with an embroidered cloth, cypress-dotted hills beyond.

Where

Where it is practised in Tuscany

In Tuscany the geographies of historic embroidery are clear-cut. Pistoia has a tradition of religious embroidery tied to ecclesiastical patronage — vestments — which from the seventeenth century onwards sustained specialist workshops in the historic convents. Firenze has a tradition of high-end secular embroidery: trousseaux, household linen, luxury garments, work for the great fashion houses. Pisa, Siena, Arezzo have schools of rural embroidery tied to wedding trousseaux, household linen and village traditions.

A hoop and linen with the design drawn on it, green and ochre skeins, a pincushion, thimble, scissors and a wooden spool.

How

The techniques of the craft

The techniques of embroidery are many, and they define separate worlds. Needle painting covers the surface with long and short stitches, building almost photographic images. Stem stitch, outline stitch and cross stitch are the basic popular stitches. Goldwork — gilt threads worked on heavy fabric with special techniques (low relief, high relief) — is the summit of religious embroidery. Passementerie is a related art that produces braids, cords, fringes and applied decoration. Rete filet works on a square-mesh net, filling the meshes with stitches that draw geometric motifs. Ajour or drawn thread work works by removing weft threads from the base fabric and embroidering on the net that remains. Machine embroidery is practised in the workshop for more serial production, but true embroidery of authorship remains handwork.

An embroiderer works a scrolling design on linen stretched on a frame, before shelves of skeins sorted by colour.

Now

The craft today

Doing it today is a delicate niche. Religious embroidery lives on restoration (historic vestments to be consolidated and cleaned) and on new commissions for churches and congregations — fewer than in the past but steady. Secular embroidery lives on high-end products (bed and bath linen for luxury hotels, important gifts for ceremonies) and on collaborations with fashion houses. Rete filet and the popular stitches risk disappearing because there is no generational turnover: the women's craft schools no longer exist, and they are learned only on private courses or within the family. Some Tuscan workshops are doing very good work on recovering these techniques, building them into contemporary fashion projects.