(ANSA) - ROME, JUN 11 - He refused to make women suffer with heavy, rigid and "painful" clothes, courageously challenging the oppressive trends of the fashion of his time.
She designed elegant but comfortable mulberry silk dresses also conquering "royal" clients such as the princesses of the House of Savoy and the Tsarina Caterinala Grande.
Google celebrates women with a Doodle dedicated to the 306th anniversary of the birth of Donna Francesca Sanna Sulis, known as "the lady of the mulberry trees", a brave and nonconformist Sardinian designer of the eighteenth century.
Born in 1716 in a small village in southern Sardinia, she grew up in the family farm and learned how to run a business.
She married at 19 and with her husband moved to the family business dedicated to the cultivation of mulberry trees.
Soon, Francesca found herself overseeing the entire silk production chain: from making sure the worms had enough mulberry leaves to feed on, to extracting silk threads from cocoons.
When she took over the business, she invested in modern canvases and transformed the estate into a state-of-the-art silk production site for the time.
She did not know that her business would revolutionize the entire fashion industry as women who did not wear traditional clothes risked being marginalized.
But it was not only this: he also dedicated himself to making the women of his community responsible.
He ran a vocational school that taught hundreds of women the lucrative arts of spinning, weaving, tailoring, and even botany.
After completing the courses, the women received a free frame and a chance to achieve financial independence.
Today you can find his historical clothes on display at the DonnaFrancesca Sanna Sulis Museum in Muravera and at the State Museum of the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, where there is a portrait of Catherine the Great who wore one of her dresses.
(HANDLE).