Terragni

Sandro Terragni (1908-1978). Como-born industrialist in the silk sector. He was one of the most innovative and creative manufacturers, and an extraordinary ally of Italian fashion designers between the 1950s and the 1970s, the period in which the Made in Italy was born and matured. The eldest of five siblings, he graduated from the Scuola Serica (Silk School) of Como and started work in the weaving mill that his paternal uncle Alessandro had founded in 1920. After a few years of apprenticeship, he purchased the company, along with his brother Mario who would work alongside him as the administrator of the company. During the Second World War, the company also manufactured parachutes. In the years after the war, the plant was moved from Via Indipendenza (where it stood next to the house of Giuseppe Terragni, the great Rationalist architect who, however, was not related) to Via Viganò, increasing the number of looms to 120 and opening a printing facility at Montano Lucino. He combined an admirable technical skill and a great degree of creativity. In the weaving mill, his innovations had to do with the first blended threads for fine fabrics such as satins and marocains, the first blends of wool and viscose acetates. He worked with the fashion designers Irene Galitzine, Heinz Riva, the Fontana Sisters, Dior, Balenciaga, and Saint-Laurent. After his death, the company became little more than a “converter” and was run by his son Giorgio and his nephew Paolo.