Asta
Olga (1880-1963). A very important figure in the history of embroidery and lace in the 20th century. Born in Venice, Olga Lustig went to work at a very young age as a shop assistant in the lace firm Jesurum, another legendary name in the industry. At 19 she married Giosuè Asta, an officer in the merchant marine. A little later, in the early 1900s, she opened her first small shop in Piazza San Marco. An almost immediate success allowed her to expand the business and gave her three shop windows under the archway of the Procuratie Vecchie. She used to say that she was totally unable to do any sewing work. But she was extremely skilled in designing ensembles for bridal veils, tablecloths, table decorations and sheets. The design department was located in the back of the shop. After making a sketch she prepared a final model that, reviewed and corrected, would be given to the embroiderers and lace makers. Even in the 1920s Olga found herself faced with the problem of a trade — lace embroidery, with bobbin and with needle — that was threatened by progress. Her solution was to open in Burano a school of lacemaking so that the tradition would not die. Before the war, she opened a branch of the school in Milan on Corso Littorio (today Corso Matteotti), directed until its closing at the beginning of the 1960s by Bianca Kalberg and Amalia Vernocchi. Olga sold her products also in the CÂte d’Azur and St. Moritz. She was a supplier to the royal family and numbered among her clients Barbara Hutton, King Farouk (who ordered for his wife a trousseau that is still famous for its opulence), the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Douglas Fairbanks, William Powell, Myrna Loy and the families of the Italian aristocracy and upper class. She always shared the profits of the firm with her employees, long before profit-sharing became part of the strategy of unions. When she died in 1963 the firm was already in trouble, as the times and what people wore had changed. The firm could not survive much longer, and when it closed, her designs were scattered.