INTERIOR DESIGN & ARCHITECTURE

Fortuny is a historical Venetian company of fabrics, opened in 1921 on the remains of an old monastery on Giudecca island in Venice. It was founded by Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo, painter, stage designer, photographer, collector and especially designer of clothes that became cornerstones in the history of fashion, like the Delphos robe or the Knossos scarf.

These silk garments, as well as velvet cloaks or robes, were made entirely in the laboratory of Palazzo Pesaro degli Orfei in Venice, where Mariano Fortuny lived: the processing of fabrics, their dyeing and printing and decoration withadditional elements were all operations taking place within the laboratory.

As soon as the activities were extended to the preparation of showrooms and interior design, new spaces were needed large enough to hold the long bolts of cotton used to make curtains, wallpaper and upholstery fabric. It was on this basis that the large Giudecca factory was opened, whose wide structure could contain large pieces of fabrics hanging out several days to air for drying.

Today Palazzo Pesaro degli Orfei became the Fortuny Museum and has maintained intact the furnishings of its owner, while hosting important and innovative exhibitions of contemporary art. The factory, instead, continues to produce with the same techniques and the same machines invented by Mariano Fortuny.

The artisans who have succeed over time have passed their specific skills to achieve colors and to print fabrics, all rules that are still secret today, since access to the factory is strictly forbidden to outsiders. For years, the factory continued to print the designs of Mariano Fortuny in the range of colors from him designed and proposed, repertoire which is an inexhaustible archive of styles and themes. Today the Fortuny Company maintains the production to a semi-industrial and artisan level, using the same type of Egyptian cotton and the same dyes from organic substances, with the addition of metals to create gold or silver colours. The Fortuny production is never a mere process of reproduction: the inal result of any dyeing and printing process is a unique and unrepeatable event, and is subject to change due to chance, due to climatic conditions and varying dosages of the pigments.

Fortuny is now owned by Mickey and Maury Riad, who - in addition to running with passion and dedication the tradition handed down by their previous owners - see the future of the company towards a process of meditated and gradual innovation both in terms of products and distribution.

To the fabrics production the new Fortuny management adds the creation of products and accessories such as vases, lamps and chandeliers, in collaboration with prestigious Italian companies.

Although the headquarters is located in a historic building in Manhattan, the Decoration and Design Building, Fortuny is restoring the centrality in Venice, turning again to the European market: in Venice, the factory, whose production spaces are still secret to the public, hosts an elegant showroom in the ground floor, which re-proposes, a hundred years after, the same high class and elegant hospitality atmosphere that characterized the Fortuny atelier of Palazzo Pesaro degli Orfei.