Fan
Fan, says an old adage: in San Simone (October 28), the fan is put away especially in the hottest periods of the year
Fan, an old adage goes: in San Simone (October 28), the fan is put away. It is the consecration, through popular culture, of a very useful object, especially in the hottest periods of the year. Of various shapes, usually semicircular, waved with the hand, it serves to make wind and calm the heat. Consisting of a series of thin sticks of sandalwood, ivory or mother-of-pearl, fixed on one side, on which a strip of paper, fabric or silk is applied, the fan spread throughout Europe brought from the East, towards the end of the 1400s and the beginning of the 1500s and reaches its period of maximum popularity and elegance during the 18th century, when it is used indifferently by women and men, both during the day and in the evening.
It is refined, often precious, hand painted
Refined, often precious, hand painted with mythological and biblical scenes and figures or, more simply, with animals, flowers and rural scenes. It is also an instrument of coquetry and flirtatious winks. There was a loving language of the fan. During the 19th century, printed fabrics took the place of paper or hand-painted fabrics and worldly use was reduced only to the evening: a use that held up even for a long part of the 1900s. Proust loved the fan, as, in the last part of the century, the designer Karl Lagerfeld showed that he loved it.
In the years before the Second World War, the boxes of La Scala were still full of fans which, after all, still accompany the torrid summers of the Spaniards, women or men. Since the beginning of the 1980s, with the emergence of the great Japanese stylists, there has been a repeated attempt to re-propose the fan in a minimalist key: rice paper, perhaps round or triangular.
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Down Jacket
