Communicative Surfaces: E. Miroglio A/W 2013-14

The first genuine experiments in textile design took place in the Bauhaus laboratory directed by Anni Albers and focused on yarns with opposite qualities used to produce experimental fabrics (in paper/cellophane, cotton/wool and rayon/cellophane) with a communicative power generated by internal contrasts.

The main aim of such experiments was searching for a new identity for the materials employed, on a linguistic and a constructive level.

The most avant-garde experimentations and combinations – leather and steel, glass and wood, or glass and steel – were used to let such materials speak one with the other, creating in this way new expressive potential.

As the years passed material experimentations led to new surface finishes that offered products with an even stronger force of expression.

The idea of surface elaborations and active surfaces that can communicate something through colours, patterns, effects and stritches came back to my mind after seeing the samples at the E. Miroglio stand at the latest Pitti Filati.

A large Italian apparel and textile company that expanded in the '90s in Bulgaria (the production facility in the town of Yambol is one of the biggest in Europe with a worsted spinning workshop with 10.780 spindles and an annual production of 3,5 millions kg), E. Miroglio produces worsted, woolen fabrics and wool yarn, plus cotton and viscose blends, noble mixes with silk, wool, cashmere, angora and linen in a range of attractive colours.

The stand featured both men and women's wear designs and while the former concentrated more on bright colours (pics not included here as this post is already pretty heavy on photographs…), the latter featured instead very interesting elements, from slashes and laser cut-like elaborations to three-dimentional patterns, graphic elements, ribs, knots and twists with a strong communicative power and with the focus once again on surface elaborations.

Interesting enough there weren't any examples of printed, laminated or rubberised motifs on the knitted pieces, but the surface elaborations were created using the vast range of yarns produced by the company employed to make knitted structures, spiral or braided formations, blocks and loops.

It was easy to spot the background of the company – textiles and yarns – since all the designs exhibited revolved around the themes of textures and shapes through a process of experimentation with materials and a geometric approach to knitwear.

Inventive construction, fabrication, embellishment and colour combinations were the key to some of the designs.

While others featured jacquard, intarsia or patterned and overprinted motifs. In some cases the final results challenged the expectations of knitted fabrics.

In some cases natural and synthetic yarns were mixed to produce densely chaotic surfaces, shrunk, relaxed, or voluminously ebullient shapes and silhouettes with strong visual and tactile qualities.

I'm not sure if Jonathan Saunders gets his stuff from E. Miroglio, but some of the beehive-like or geometric elaborations looked pretty similar to the men and womenswear designs in his collections.