Emilio Cavallini

To anyone with a comprehensive knowledge of the fashion industry, the name Emilio Cavallini is immediately associated with hosiery and leg wear. The book is an unbelievable paean to this fashion accessory that was raised to the level of an art form via Mr. Cavallini’s talents and manufacturing abilities and facilities. He took it upon himself to elevate the manufacture and design of hosiery and raise it to so much more than a weaving or knitting process.

Ms. Barzini should have quit with some simple inspirational words about taking an industrial process and elevating the process to masterpiece status but rather she engages in several over written chapters, which would confuse a Rhodes Scholar. One would hopefully have to blame that the verbiage was written in Italian and then translated to English—and if not, then one could say that this is an overreaching, overbearing, overwritten piece which borders on stratospherically high levels of pretension.

The photography is beyond beautiful and really offers us a visual library of this man’s creative abilities. He did take what one might consider a lesser accessory and made everyone stand up and notice that there was an art involved with the manufacture of leg wear and hosiery.

The book comes encased in a piece of hosiery which provides a firsthand example of the ingenuity and creativity that was involved in the process of raising the profile of leg wear and hosiery and stockings to fashion leg wear that will withstand the test of time—and now has a place in the annals of fashion history.