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Showing Her Spring Collection In SarasotaItaliantBy MARCIA CORBINO Journal CorrespondentLydia de Crescenzo is an Italian fashion designer who believes that clothes should be handmade rather than manufactured. She was in Sarasota last week showing her Lydia de Roma spring collection at Westmoreland's on St. Armands Circle.Despite the modest prices, Lydia s ready-to-wear features embroidery and lace all meticulously made by hand by women inRome.“I have always had a great admiration for crafts.” she said in excellent English at an interview. ‘‘I have an enormous group of handicraft people who work for me. You call it ‘cottage industry' here.”She employs young girls who are studying embroidery with nuns in order to make their trousseaus and older women whose husbands do not want them to work outside the home. As Lydia has no factory, the garments are made and trimmed at the workers’ homes.‘‘But we are getting into trouble with that,” she said. “We have a very strong Communist party in Italy. They are stalling to say that we should put all of these people in factories. They want to unionize everything. This will kill the business. These women won’t do it. They love their work, and they want to work at home.”She cites as an example one of her former employees who is now working on Seventh Avenue in New York City. The family has a house, a car and their children go to good schools.‘‘But I am not really happy,” the woman told Lydia recently, ‘in working for you, I was the one to make the garment. Here I make the sleeves. I don’t even know how they look when they are attached. My husband makes collars. This doesn’t give us any pleasure or any pride.”Lydia feels that American manufacturersnercan never copy her line “They do it by machines so it is not the same.”Almost every dress, skirt, smock or outfit in the Lydia de Roma collection is trimmed with lace or has embroidered motifs such as butterflies, flowers or horses. She uses fine fabrics such as cotton with a touch of polyester or silk combined with viscose so it doesn't wrinkle. The collection is fresh in color, and there are many bright checks, stripes and plaids.Lydia does all the designing with the help of her two daughters who have recently joined her in the business.“My youngest is extremely chic and my eldest is very romantic, so we have three really different looks. But 1 am the boss. I am always the final to say yes or no.”Her showroom is at Via Ripetta 22. in an old section of Rome. The design studio and workshop for the custom collection is on one floor. There is also a showroom for the ready-to-wear collection which is sold to specialty shops throughout the United States.Although Lydia started her fashion business in Italy after the war, she was bom in Argentina and lived in Paris where her father was in fashion.“I grew up among swatches and colors,” she recalls. “My father went to Italy just before the war and opened a specialty shop He imported everything as at that time Italy didn’t produce anything.”She worked in the shop with him and helped with designing.“After the war Italy was completely beaten down,” she said We had nothing. No possibility of importing anything. M y customers said, ‘Lydia, what can you do for usv’ And I had an idea.”Knowing that the Italian tradition was to prepare a trousseau for every young girl, she said. “Bring me your sheets and your(Continued on Page 3C)ForHandmadeSarasota Journal—Marcia CorbtnoLYDIA DE ROM V
Newspaper Details
Sarasota Journal
Sarasota, Florida, US
Wed, Feb 23, 1977
Page 22
Full Page
Clipped by
Daniel M.
GB 21 Jun 2022
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