Daughter of academics and grown up surrounded by famous writers and artists of her time, the fashion and textile designer Maria Monaci Gallenga has innovated the fashion industry, introducing a special printing technique.

The invention consisted in using wooden moulds to apply glue on textiles in order to decorate the motif with gold and silver metallic pigments. Her particular way to combine the colours made the motifs look like painted instead of printed. Inspired by the past and the Renaissance period in particular, her hand-stenciled designs have been often compared to the ones of Fortuny.

Detail of a cape in velvet and chiffon, hand-printed in gold with Gallenga's method by Sartoria Tirelli. Collection Galleria del Costume di Palazzo Pitti, all rights reserved.

She started to show her interior design works in 1913 through the Roman Secession exhibition and later in 1915 she conquered the US market, presenting a womenswear collection of 22 printed fashion objects at the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco, where she achieved such a great success that some of her works are still conserved by Metropolitan Museum of New York. Thereafter, she expanded her laboratory into a factory able to supply the American market demand, revealing a strong entrepreneurial attitude.

Printed black velvet evening cape designed by Maria Monaci Gallenga. 1920/1925. Courtesy of Gemeentemuseum Den Haag. All rights reserved.

In the same year Maria Monaci Gallenga started to work in partnership with Vittorio Zecchin, participating to several exhibitions around Europe. In 1924 she worked with Antonio Maraini for the Biennale of Venice. Since then she often worked in collaboration with the most famous artists of her time, as Galileo Chini, Gino Sensani, Romano Romanelli, who provided the patterns for her printed fabrics. Sensitive and engaged in the cultural debates of her time, she also founded an association to promote the Italian craftsmanship in the world.

Gold printed black velvet coat designed by Maria Monaci Gallenga. 1918/1919. Courtesy of Museo del Traje. All rights reserved.

After showing her creations in her own pavillion decorated by the Italian artist Antonio Maraini at the Exposition International des Arts Deoratifs in Paris in 1925 her succes was so wide that she opened a boutique in Paris with Bice Pittoni and Carla Visconti di Modrone. The shop, called Boutique Italienne, showed the best Italian works of art, until 1934, when she decided to close it and come back to Rome.

Discover more Gallenga’s printings on Europeana Fashion Portal