Loom rubber bands bracelets may be all the rage at the moment, but at Cariaggi's stand at yarn fair Pitti Filati (early July) there were quite different kind of looms and bands.
Loom-like wooden structures were indeed used to create arty tapestries with rather thick bands in a palette revolving around black, pale grey/pink and bright fuchsia.
It was only by getting nearer that you realised the thick bands were actually strips of "Play", a wonderful 100% carded cashmere yarn that undergoes a very special processing technique.
The latter makes it possible to obtain a hollow tubular cashmere yarn that is also extremely light thanks to the air stored inside it.
The best thing about "Play" is that it comes out in versatile and fashionable shades including a bright bubblegum/neon pink, and that it can be processed also by hand, it is therefore suitable also for knitwear enthusiasts who would like to create their own designs (not just garments, but also accessories) using a truly luxurious cashmere yarn.
"Play" is actually part of the new generation of Cariaggi's "Fantasia" line of yarns. The latter also includes "Nirvana" (60% cashmere, 40% silk; worsted), a voluminous, warm yet impalpable cloud-like yarn; "Bijou" (90% cashmere, 10% silk; worsted), a yarn with bouclé processing that gives garments a sense of dynamism and is perfectly suited to new colour interpretations since it features bright coloured dots on solid autumnal backgrounds.
The Fantasia yarn range is completed by a series of sumptuous textures and melanges of cotton/vicuña, cashmere/silk, wool/cashmere yarns including "Frisson" (94% cashmere, 6% silk; carded) embellished with sequins, and the "Bouclé" cashmere yarn (90% cashmere, 10% silk; worsted).
The colours for the new collection are soft, delicate and sensual at the same time. Cariaggi's colour stylist Marie-Christine Viannay came up with a palette inspired by the fragrances of the East (a tribute maybe to the expansion and success of Cariaggi in China; the Italian company opened indeed last year its first office in Shanghai), Ottoman splendour, Turkish interior design and architecture and gold hues reminiscent of Byzantium.
The result was a collection characterised by blues, infused with lilac reflections, lilac-tinted sepias that evoke a winter in Istanbul and a series of dégradé greens to brighten up the more traditional snowy greys and pallid shades of the cold season.
One final note: though Viannay borrowed some inspirations for her palette from Oriental paintings, some of the swatches made with green "Bijou" yarn seemed to evoke the shades and thick brush strokes of Italian paintings from the 1900s such as Sergio Scatizzi's "Terre Volterranee" (Lands from Volterra, 1965) or Bruno Cassinari's "Ruscello Verde" (Green Stream, 1941-42).
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