She bravely and determinedly challenged the conventions of the time, refusing to make women suffer with heavy, stiff and "painful" dresses and designing wonderful (and comfortable) mulberry silk dresses.
Google celebrates with a doodle the 306th anniversary of the birth of Donna Francesca Sanna Sulis , known as "the lady of the mulberry trees", a Sardinian designer who conquered "real" clients such as the princesses of the House of Savoy and the Tsarina Catherine the Great.
Born in 1716 in Muravera , she married at 19 and moved with her husband to the family business dedicated to the cultivation of mulberries. Here he learned to run a business, overseeing the entire silk production chain: from making sure the worms had enough mulberry leaves to feed on, to extracting silk threads from cocoons.
When she took over the business, Donna Francesca decided to give it a leap forward: she invested in modern looms and transformed the estate into a state-of-the-art silk production site for the time, revolutionizing the entire fashion industry.
But not only that: she ran a professional school that taught hundreds of women the profitable arts of spinning, weaving, tailoring and even botany . After completing the courses, the women received a free loom - an essential tool for working on their own and achieving economic independence.
Today her historical clothes can be found on display at the Donna Francesca Sanna Sulis Museum in Muravera and at the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg : here is a portrait of Catherine the Great who wore one of her dresses.
(Unioneonline / D)