Fortuny

In a time when fashion was all about corsets and bustles, Mariano Fortuny took the fashion world by storm by introducing unstructured, loose, and easy to wear garments that heralded back to ancient Rome and Greece. His most coveted creations are his pleated Delphos gowns, shift dresses made of finely pleated silk weighed down by glass beads that holds their shape and flowed on the body. The pleating that he used was all done by hand and no one has been able to recreate pleating that is as fine as his or has held its shape like his dresses have for many years. He also manufactured his own dyes and pigments for his fabrics using ancient methods. With these dyes he began printing on velvets and silks and dyed them using a press that he invented with wooden blocks that he engraved the pattern onto. His dresses are seen as fine works of art today and many survive, still pleated, in museums and many people’s personal collections.