Sources: Biella and water
Visiting the city of Biella means to understand a spontaneous, entangled relationship between nature and urban development. Buildings, monuments, even chimneys always seem to move, in order to let the human eye enjoy the view of the Alps in the background.
Because Biella develops on the slopes of mounts and some of them – like Massiccio del Bo or Mucrone – give birth to sources powering rivers in the surroundings. Water is a crucial element in the description of such environment: abundant because of frequent rainfalls, clean thanks to springs made of crystalline, siliceous rocks, even able to heal with the hydrotherapy pools that gained wide success in the past centuries
Such intense bond with this element also influences the productive development: when industries began to adopt performative steam boilers at the end of the 19th century, textile districts in Biella decided to involve them just to empower their trusty hydraulic energy. Modern factories kept being built along rivers, expressing a personal affection for local lands which was also entrepreneurial foresight.
Pure spring water wets wool during the crucial phases of the manufacturing processes: FILA knows this tradition so well, and lets water be a source of inspiration through the years. When designer Pierluigi Rolando draws the AQUA TIME line in 1976, he adopts the fluidity of sea waves on fabrics, creating a perfect encounter between fashion system and swimming pools. Among his muses, also Lucio Fontana: talking about water, the Italian artist treated the surfaces of his canvases right with hydro painting, a material that could dry quickly, also guaranteeing flat, perfect background for his epic Concetti spaziali. Nowadays, SS20 is enhanced with pure, mineral white colors, dazzeling shades of blue, sinuous fabrics reminding of mountain rivers.
You can look towards future only by understanding the past, but the one who hasn’t visited Biella maybe has no real experience of water – present, discreet, fresh companion.
