The Loved Garment of Elena Crosilla

It might seem obvious to feature a wedding dress as a loved garment. However, this is not a typical story, but an exceptional one.

As a child, Elena would stare wondering at her mother making clothes. Elena would imitate her, crafting tiny garments for her dolls using the leftover fabric. Although a housewife, her mother was an expert seamstress, from paper pattern drafting to execution. In Elena’s mind, one day she would wear a wedding dress made by her mother. Fate wouldn’t agree: her mother passes away when Elena is just 23.

Choosing a wedding dress in 1992 thus became an important and complex decision. She makes an attempt, ultimately impossible, to reuse her own mother’s wedding dress. She tries a white summer dress that her mother had made for her, but it isn’t a wedding dress. She goes to various tailor shops, none of which feel right. Eventually, she stumbles upon a small atelier called Axis. Displayed in the shop window, incredibly, is the perfect dress: elegant yet playful as Elena had imagined.

Elena walks in, she is greeted by Erika Cijan and by a red-haired girl. The dress is tailored for her. A few weeks later, the atelier closes down. If Elena hadn’t walked by that day, none of this would have happened.

It wouldn’t have happened that over thirty years later, that red-haired seamstress, now the President of Fondazione ITS, would warmly welcome, and with huge emotion, Elena’s wedding dress to be displayed in the loved dress showcase, as part of the exhibition “The Many Lives of a Garment.”

Thanks to destiny, a dress crafted by Barbara Franchin in 1992 for Elena Crosilla’s wedding returns to ITS Arcademy. A dress that intertwines the lives of a seamstress mother, a daughter determined to celebrate her, and a young seamstress, over thirty years later, who will tell the story she helped to create.