Three milestones of Italian creativity from the archives of Milanese fashion designer Nanni Strada were the focus of a study conducted by the Department of Chemistry and Industrial Chemistry of the University of Pisa recently published in the proceedings of the conference ‘The Plastics Heritage’ held in Naples in 2022. The research, carried out as part of a collaboration between the Nanni Strada Archive (Milan), conservator Barbara Ferriani (Milan), and researchers from the Department of Chemistry, aims to contribute to the knowledge and preservation of the extremely fragile heritage of textiles and historical fashion design garments in which Italy excels. These, however, risk being lost if specific solutions are not found. The research group’s studies on modern textiles were also the subject of attention at the workshop ‘Semi-synthetic and Synthetic Textile Materials in Fashion, Design and Art’ organised by the ICOM-CC Modern Materials and Contemporary Art & Textiles Working Groups (21-23 February 2023).
The Nanni Strada projects surveyed included: a) ‘Il Manto’ (1973), b) ‘La Pelle’ (1973), c) ‘Amazonica’ (1976). Courtesy Nanni Strada Archive.
Since the 1970s, Nanni Strada has focused her research on new technological processes and the use of unconventional materials, resulting in the design and production of pioneering garments. Among those involved in the study conducted by the University of Pisa are ‘La Pelle’, the world’s first completely seamless woven garment (thanks to the polytubular technology of circular hosiery machines); ‘Il Manto’, a coat-garment cut from a single piece of fabric, with no waste, assembled with futuristic multi-needle stitching; and a garment from the ‘Amazonica’ collection, produced in 1976 with a Dupont non-woven fabric, printed by inkjet. The first two constituted the 1973 metaproject ‘Il Manto e la Pelle’ (The Coat and The Skin), which was awarded the Compasso d’Oro prize by ADI – Association for Industrial Design in 1979; all three are now part of the Milan Triennale Permanent Collection, together with other garments and materials documenting the research for which Nanni Strada was also awarded the Compasso d’Oro prize for Lifetime Achievement in 2018.
"These historical fashion design items present specific and unprecedented conservation challenges that need to be addressed by assessing degradation processes and developing targeted restoration and preventive conservation practices,” says Barbara Ferriani, an expert conservator of modern and contemporary materials.
“To achieve this goal, we need analytical tools capable of characterising modern multi-component polymeric materials and investigating their risk factors and causes of degradation,” adds professor Francesca Modugno of the University of Pisa. Originally, textile fibres were obtained from natural sources, such as plants and animals; the same applies to 20th-century man-made fibres, obtained by modifying natural ones. Later, fibres based on synthetic polymers began to gain ground on the world market, and we can also find them today in garments and objects exhibited in museums or preserved in archives. This is the case with some of the garments designed by Nanni Strada, which pose a specific challenge: these garments were the result of experimentation that had both aesthetic and performative effects and led to pioneering and unprecedented achievements, whose evolution over time, however, was not foreseeable.
“Information on the specific causes of degradation of synthetic textiles, involving the loss of both material cohesion and colour, is still very limited,” explains Nanni Strada. “Therefore, studying the behaviour of synthetic textile fibres over time and their interactions with the environment is crucial for setting up appropriate conservation plans for designer fabrics, stage costumes and fashion collections.” In particular, samples taken from the three garments in the Nanni Strada Archive were analysed using spectroscopy, analytical pyrolysis, chromatography and mass spectrometry methods. In the case of ‘Il Manto’, it was found that the yellowing process was probably related to the hydrolysis of the polyurethane fraction applied onto the main cotton fabric and used to waterproof the garment. As for ‘La Pelle’ – which was ruined during a particularly hot summer while on display at the exhibition –, the loss of elasticity is technically to be attributed to the photo-oxidation of the polyamide chain and to the influence of dye molecules on glass transition temperature (the temperature at which an amorphous polymer changes from a hard state to a soft one, or vice versa).
“The results of the study will contribute to improving the understanding of the chemical properties of textiles and their behaviour over time, and to planning conservation strategies,” concludes professor Ilaria Degano of the University of Pisa. “Besides, getting to understand more about the chemical-physical properties and the degradation processes of synthetic fibres, as well as the analytical tools for their assessment, can also be very useful in the fields of contemporary industrial textile technology and environmental studies related to synthetic microfibre pollution.”
The authors of the work published in the proceedings of the 2022 conference ‘The Plastics Heritage’ held in Naples are, for the University of Pisa, Tommaso Nacci, Deborah Roversi, Francesca Sabatini (also CNR-SCITEC, Perugia), Ilaria Degano and Francesca Modugno, together with the Nanni Strada Archive and Barbara Ferriani, a restorer specialised in projects for leading national and international Museums, Foundations, and Institutions.