Venice has undoubtedly many faces: art and history books focus on the city’s grandeur; TV programmes often emphasise the most colourful aspects of this magic place with shots of the Carnival celebrations in St Mark’s Square, the bridges and the picture postcard gondolas taking newly weds on romantic tours; Shakespeare instead summed up the place in three words: blood, pain and money.
But there is a sort of hidden Venice that not many people know - not even Italians - and yet they have indirectly seen it. I’m talking about the Venice of the Nicolao Atelier. Since the ‘80s Stefano Nicolao’s tailoring house has indeed produced costumes for the opera, theatre and for many TV and cinema productions (among them also Gérard Corbiau’s Farinelli, Shekhar Kapur’s Elizabeth, Lasse Hallström’s Casanova and Iain Softley’s The Wings of the Dove). Mr Nicolao also collaborated to music videos: in his portfolio there is indeed also the famous video clip for Madonna’s ‘Like a Virgin’. Throughout the years Nicolao has become an established institution not only in Italy but all over the world.
It was actually costume designer Lindy Hemming (of James Bond and Batman fame) who, a while back, suggested me to contact Mr Nicolao himself while I was doing a research on cinema and fashion, and I must confess I will always be indebted to her for doing so. Months ago, while teaching my Cinemoda course at the Glasgow Film Theatre, Mr Nicolao even supplied me with a few photos and an essay he had written on his work.
Our trip to Stefano Nicolao’s hidden world of wonders started on a Saturday morning when Miss Margherita Cavalli (no relation to the Italian king of tackiness, don’t worry), Namalee and I left Bassano to reach Venice by train. Lack of sleep, a rather basic map and poor communication with the locals (Anna: “How long does it get to go to St Mark’s Square?” Ferry guy: “Ten minutes” – little did we know that the time flows really slowly in Venice as 27 minutes after we hadn’t arrived yet…) made things rather difficult at the beginning. Besides Miss Cavalli and I felt the need to turn into proper tourists with our cameras out, but it was frustrating not being equipped with the typical "perfect tourist" gear (no matching scarves, umbrellas, brooches with your country’s flags and so on…). Anyway, despite looking rather clueless, we got perfectly on time to our appointment (see, we actually KNEW where we were going, we were just trying to have a careless attitude about life…).
Located near the Jewish ghetto, in the Cannaregio area, Nicolao’s atelier is usually closed on a Saturday, but last week it was an ordinary working day for them as there were some costumes for an opera show that had to be completed. From the outside the atelier looks like a textile shop, with cushions, interior design fabrics, masks and costumes in the windows, but as soon as you get inside a dummy wearing an original woman’s dress from 1770 complete with conical powder mask and a dummy in man’s attire from the 1800s, reveal you that this is no ordinary place.
Founder Stefano Nicolao’s main dream was becoming an actor, but, after attending art school and the drama academy, he realised that what was going on behind the scenes fascinated him even more than the action on the stage. So while working as an actor he often volunteered to help with the costumes and, one day, he just decided to give up his acting career to work as a costume designer in Trieste. In the ‘80s he went back to Venice where he opened his atelier and where he started to work with local companies he used to act for. As time passed he began collaborating with many costume designers, concentrating also on TV series and films for the big screen.
Some of the first dresses Mr Nicolao showed us were indeed from the historical parts of the Pirates of the Caribbean. What was striking about them was that the gowns incorporated vintage fabrics and embroidered bits and pieces cut out from ecclesiastical tunics and chalice covers. It was interesting to notice how some costumes that looked rather heavy were actually made in the lightest fabrics by Rubelli, a textile factory that produces high quality fabrics (they also made the fabrics for the costumes in Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette).
A few costumes for operas such as Don Carlos for the Lyric Opera of Chicago were instead rather heavy as they were entirely made of precious damasked velvets in dark colours inspired by Renaissance paintings. Apparently, 1200 metres of this precious velvet were originally produced to do all the costumes for this opera.
As we walked towards the warehouse section, we admired various framed drawings, posters and pictures on the walls. There seemed to be a family-like atmosphere in the atelier, as the blackboard warning the staff that there was pasta and tuna on the day's menu proved. A few costumes were neatly arranged on their hangers ready to be shipped to Bari for an opera performance and while looking here and there we followed Nicolao through the opera section, discovering costumes for the Commedia dell’Arte (Comedy of Manners), that included different versions of the Harlequin and Balanzone costumes. There was more to discover as Mr Nicolao showed us Chanel suits that had been dismembered, dyed, torn and reassembled into costumes for the Nabucco and original Oriental kimonos and obis in the most extraordinary embroidered motifs that had been transformed into amazing costumes for a staging of Madame Butterfly.
That would have been already enough, but there was more to come: so we went upstairs to admire rows and rows of shoes, stacks of the most formidable hats - from tricorns to straw hats – shoes in every size, hundreds of belts and box upon box of accessories and clothes (an entire box was dedicated to original bathing suits from the ‘20s). Upstairs there was also a row of dark robes in a sort of rough and rather simple fabric. These were the costumes for The Merchant of Venice and you could spot among them the garments worn by Al Pacino as Shylock during his monologue. Upstairs there were also the costumes for Elizabeth and Farinelli.
Unfortunately, the most bizarre and extraordinary headdresses for the latter were away at an exhibition,
but we still managed to see a pale blue coat in washed and stained velvety fabric and the yellow velvet outfit Farinelli wears during one of his concerts.
Next to the Farinelli costumes there was a white felt suit (a bit similar to Beuys’ in its cut) covered in cables and LED lights worn during the 2008 Carnival show in St Mark’s Square.
At this year's Carnival Venice's square symbolised the pulsating brain of the city and so did this technological suit.
Making costumes for the theatre, opera and cinema is very different, Nicolao explained while showing us around. Before working on a theatrical costume you must make sure you have read the play and understood the part that a particular actor has got to interpret. If you work for the opera you must instead remember you are working on big crowds and must make sure you know how to manage them through their costumes: for example, if you use an excessively overloaded fabric the people sitting in the audience might not be able to understand what the singers are wearing as the nearest members of the audience are still at 15 metres from the stage as there’s always the orchestra pit in between. Besides, some characters might have to stand out, so it might be important to diversify some of the singers' costumes in some ways.
Doing costumes for the cinema means instead to consider the story in the film as the reality, therefore you have to make sure that every stitch you make is absolutely perfect. Carnival costumes imply a degree of freedom and fun, but also allow you to understand more about the personality of the wearer: some people hire costumes, others instead have them made to measure, finally transforming themselves in what they always desired to be.
Making costumes though doesn’t mean that Nicolao doesn’t follow fashion: picking up a red and black bustier from the late 1800s he pointed out how relevant it could be even on a contemporary catwalk and reminded us that Vivienne Westwood often takes inspiration from historical costumes in her designs. To reinforce this idea further we explored the cut and details of some men's jackets and coats from the 1800s that wouldn't have looked out of place in our streets today.
In more recent years, Nicolao created clothes – such as leather bustiers with Renaissance prints, silk waistcoats and jackets with hand-dyed marble-like effects – inspired by historical costumes that have become rather popular among his customers.
Towards the end of our tour, we stopped in front of an all-pink poster for a Parisian show. Mr Nicolao explained us that there was a scene during that show in which a tailor, helped by his valets, dressed up a dame in an extravagant big gown. Then Casanova walked on stage and kissed her and, as she swooned, her skirt overturned becoming a rose, while from her wig and headdress a stem sprouted, so that the dame metamorphosed into a flower.
Before going Mr Nicolao invited us to go and see the Carnival show, which is on at the Teatro San Gallo, just around the corner from St. Mark’s Square, and features some of his costumes. Unfortunately, we couldn't go as we were only in Venice for a few hours.
But all that story about the dress that turns into a pink rose made us dream and before leaving we took some random pictures of the atelier and of a pink sequinned tailcoat suit (complete of waistcoat and bow tie - not included in this pic) that I thought was really irresistible and of some assorted feathered headdresses (note the bizarrely cute black swan hat…).
Our visit at Nicolao’s atelier was more a crash course into costume design than a simple tour of a tailoring house and when we went away our brains were overloaded with inspirations and information so we collapsed in a nearby cafe.
Miss Cavalli had still some energies left so she kindly documented the levels of tiredness we had reached. We eventually managed to drag ourselves back to the railway station and collapsed again on the train.
On our way back to Bassano, Miss Cavalli revealed a scandalously intimate detail: she might not be related to the Italian king of kitsch but her Irish drinking socks were humorously kitsch. By then, though, my sugar levels had dropped to below zero and I couldn’t seem to keep my hands still enough to take a decent pic.
Back in Bassano my mind was still going through all the amazing things we had seen at Nicolao's and my ears were ringing with arias from Farinelli. I'm sure the next time time I watch the film, I'll think again about Mr Nicolao's precious teachings.
All pictures of costumes from operas, films and theatre shows are taken from Stefano Nicolao’s site.
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