Textiles Blog Post – by Sunjana Kulkarni

The piece I chose was the “Madonna” cape and gown by Riccardo Tisci, which he made for a statue of the Madonna for a local church in Puglia, Italy. The couture cape is made from silk crafted in the Como area of Italy, and the overall piece includes golden embroidery, which took 3000 hours to stitch, as well as 500 svarovski crytals hand-sewn into the cloth. I chose this piece because it immediately caught my attention when I saw it in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC in 2018, as part of an exhibit featuring Christianity-inspired couture pieces. It has incredible attention to detail as well as vivid colors that stand out and give off a sense of regality.