Rubelli | Golden Ribbon

Eleven percent of this cloth is metallic thread. It sits in the ground rather than the pile, so it lights the figure from behind instead of glittering on top of it, and against a silk pile that comes across as depth rather than as sparkle. The rest is silk and viscose, 260 g in all, woven at 60 cm because that is the width of a nineteenth-century Venetian hand loom.

The repeat is 29 cm, a small scale, which means a complete unit fits easily within a cushion or a chair back. Behind it is the soprarizzo technique, cut pile set against uncut loop so the pattern appears as a change in surface rather than in colour, worked by hand at Rubelli's Cucciago mill at a rate of a few centimetres a day.

One colourway. Made in Italy.