Category: Venice, Murano

The Costumes of Carnival

Visiting Venice at Carnival is a dress maker’s heaven. Of course there are the cute and whimsical costumes similar to those we see at Halloween in the US. You will see costumes of every genre in Venice. And each year there is a theme, but the classics are always in demand.

For the true Carnevale participant, the costumes are works of art, comprised of.yards of expensive brocade fabric, lace, sequins, velvet and jewels. The end result is a parade of beautifully dressed ladies and gentlemen parading through San Marco Square and taking or taking a trip in a Gondola along the famed Grand Canal.
So if you haven’t been sewing for months, you can still  rent one of the elaborate costumes for upwards of 300 Euro a day, not a small sum, but considering  the cost in materials and labor often is over 2,000 Euro, it’s not surprising.

We thought we’d visit a Costume Designer and give you a backroom view of what goes on. It is cluttered, piled top to bottom with fabrics, sequins, lace and projects underway. There are mannequins with costumes in various stages of completion.

Because the Venetian Carnevale is classic 17^th and 18^th Century, the first step is pouring over old books for authentic designs. And then wouldn’t you know that it begins with a sketch?

If they are made for a specific person, there are fittings. If they are made as rentals, there are special made with special sections to expand or make them smaller. 

There are period parties held through the city in the grand palaces. Not only must you have the correct dress, but even the wigs must be exacting to the period. 

The costumes are much like theatrical production costumes for the opera, such as La Fenice in Venice or La Scala in Milano. No detail is too small. Even the shoes in this costume repeat the same fabric as the dress (top picture).

Here are a couple more in a series of the costumes they were making on our visit. And certainly the mask must match the costume. Here come the glue gun and the feathers and of course, sparkles.

Watching this evolution of the fabric to the royal costume is like watching Cinderella’s tattered clothes turn into a ballgown and her  pumpkin into a carriage. It has all the magic of a fairy tale.

Maybe that’s why everyone loves the Carnival in Venice!

Here we have the finished costumes for the royal couple, ready to parade through the square in San Marco (well maybe he needs shoes!) Google

Epiphany is celebrated in various ways across Italy following folklore and traditions. The most famous is La Befana, an old woman who delivers gifts on the 5th of January to good children, filling their socks with presents. Bad children get lumps of coal.

Read our Blog:

If you remember our post card for Christmas of the tree by San Marco, here’s the before and after showing you how it looked on before Christmas with all the lights and again on Dec 26, Santo Stefano isolated on an island from the high water.

The high water was announced in plenty of time for locals with the alarms being sounded well in advance of it’s expected arrival. It was projected to reach its maximum at 6 a.m. and according to plans, it should have departed about 9-10ish, just in time for the stores to open (if they planned to open during the holidays).

However, the scirocco (winds which push the water in the Adriatic right into the lagoon) did not subside, so San Marco remained under water for the entire day. With the altitude of San Marco at about 80cm (about 31 inches above sea level), it is one of the lowest places in the city and water begins seeping from under the pavement until the sea level is above the walls and it begins pouring in. The provision was for 115 cm. When the water projected to reach these levels, a siren alerts everyone in the city and the store owners must rush to the stores, day or night, and pick up things on the floor. After the water recedes, there is a lot of work, cleaning the mud as well as disinfecting to prevent mildew.

For More Pictures and stories of Acqua Alta:

Read Wikipedia; Read what Wikipedia has to say

Snow & High Water; Venice is incredibly beautiful in snow, but treacherous with high water

High Water 10-12; It came on the day of the Venice Marathon.

The Highest in 22 Years December 2008, the water was incredibly high.

Note for Venice Travelers: If you are traveling to Venice, you might want to download the very useful app. HighTide Venice. High water in Venice should never deter you from getting around and usually last only a couple of hours. However, high tides are generally accompanied by unpleasant weather, rain and wind.

Throw-away boots are available for about 15US$ and as we heard one tourist say: The best 15$ they ever spent. 

They were enjoying this amazing phenomenon in this very special city.
Google

Many of our customers start out making jewelry as a hobby, or because they can’t find original jewelry and don’t want to buy mass produced pieces and sometimes it’s to design around a specific outfit or occasion. Then…their friends or co-workers see their beautiful pieces and start asking for their own jewelry. It’s a pretty common story. Believe me, I understand this as it’s pretty much how we got into the business. I bought some beautiful pieces in Venice and all my friends began asking me to buy for them when I went back. Because we had a son-in-law from the area, we were going back and forth a lot. It you are at this junction, there are so many parts of the business to consider. I recommend selling for a while to this ready-made group of customers, who can give you feedback, let you know if something falls apart, or just doesn’t work. After selling to this close group of people, consider home parties before you sign up for fairs or shows. From your friends, you can branch out without spending a lot. For the home party, you can reward the hostess with a piece of jewelry of her choice. Home parties are still intimate, and friends will help sell your jewelry as they can try on, and admire each other’s choices. The profits you get from this part of your new occupation can go towards stocking your inventory. But don’t over stock on anything, be frugal as you are still learning what your customers like and don’t like.   Google

We all collect and pay sales taxes in the state where we have our business. But how will you manage and pay taxes in 50 states with some 9,600 different tax districts?   This very important bill is being hidden in with other important legislation in the hopes to get it passed without notice by the very people it impacts! Everyone! Read the email from Tod Cohen, Vice President & Deputy General Counsel, Government Relations, eBay Inc.   It’s easy to send your opinion to Congress, Follow this link and submit your signature to stand up for Small Businesses!   Your input is needed, back in the spring, signatures, letters and calls like this stopped its passage. “Dear Ebay Vendor, You may have heard that Congress is considering an Internet sales tax bill called the “Marketplace Fairness Act” that is anything but “fair” for small online businesses. If you want to help us protect small businesses and entrepreneurs from new tax burdens, please get involved now. If the Marketplace Fairness Act is allowed to become law, it could require online sellers like you to collect sales taxes nationwide from the more than 9,600 tax jurisdictions. You could also face the prospect of being audited by tax collectors from other states. On behalf of our eBay community, we are pushing Congress to include meaningful protections for small businesses. Earlier this year, the Senate passed a bill now being considered by the House of Representatives. The good news is that hundreds of thousands of consumers and small business owners contacted Capitol Hill to express their concerns. This public outpouring has resulted in the House taking time to ask much-needed questions about how this bill will impact e-commerce and small businesses like yours. Despite this positive development, the bill’s supporters and their Washington lobbyists still want to get the bill through Congress by attaching it to important pieces of legislation that Congress must pass, such as the government funding and debt ceiling bills. Congress must fix the Senate bill by significantly increasing the small business exemption. That is why we need your help. If you oppose attempts to force an unfair Internet sales tax bill into law, raise your voice and let your representatives in Congress know. Thank you for helping to keep the Internet a fair and open marketplace for all. Sincerely,Tod Cohen Vice President & Deputy General Counsel, Government RelationseBay Inc”. Google

This year marked the 50th year anniversary of the tragedy of Vajont. They were situated in a remote and beautiful area about 100km northeast of Venice, just beyond Vittorio Veneto along the Piave River valley and the roadway which eventually leads through the Dolomiti to Austria. Looking up at the dam from the valley below does not give you the sense of the size of the landslide. It appears tranquil. It is only when you reach the dam itself that you have the realization of that the mountain is where the lake should be.

 The Dam of Vajont project seemed an ideal location nestled in the Vajont Gouge of two opposing mountains and harnessing the power of the Vajont River before it flows into the Piave River on it’s way to the Adriatic. Never mind that the generations before had named the mountain, Monte Toc, “the mountain that walks ” nor that the area had been devastated in prior centuries by flood or landslides.

 The plans for this project was envisioned in the 1920s but only authorized in 1943 to meet the growing need for industrialization. It was built by SADE (Societa Adriatica di Elettricita) whose engineers completed the engineering analysis, including the landside sites in the facing mountains. It was an ambitious project which included building basins higher in the mountain to feed the lake created by the dam. Construction begin in 1957, based on the older engineering analysis, but by 1959 the mountain began shifting on the side where construction of a road had begun. Three separate studies concluded that the entire side of Monte Toc was unstable and could fall into the lake. But, these analysis were ignored, why and whose fault are still unanswered questions. Or maybe as you read other reports their were business and  political interests which fogged the normal sensibilities of engineers.

 SADE received the ok from Rome and the Italian government in February 1960 to proceed with filling the reservoir, and with the spring thaw in the mountains the water level began to rise. Throughout the summer of 1960, minor landslides occurred. But the water level continued to rise. On 4 November 1960 when the water level was at about 190 meters (620 feet) a large landslide of approximately 800,000 cubic meters (one million cubic yards) fell right into the lake. SADE stopped filling the reservoir and began some plans to build a basin just before the dam which would make it usable in case of further erosion, which by now was foreseeable. They reduced the water level by about 50 metres (160 feet) during this phase.

 However, after this basin was completed, they resumed filling the reservoir and May of 1962, the water level was at 215 meters (705 feet). The locals living in the nearby towns of Erto and Casso were experiencing earthquakes and had become concerned. Their concerns were over ridden by Rome and SADE who received the authorization to fill the dam to its maximum level. By July 1962, even SADE’s engineers were concerned and ran models on the effect of further landslides of Monte Toc into the lake. They concluded that the wave generated by a sudden fall of the side of the mountain could generate a wave large enough to overflow the damn if the water level was within 20 meters of the top of the dam (66 feet). So the decision was made to lower the water level 25 meters. The engineers decided they could “control” the now certain landsides by controlling the level water in the dam, so once again they proceeded to fill the lake. In March of 1963 the dam was transferred from SADE to the newly formed ENEL (still the power company in Italy). SADE was encouraged to transfer the dam as fully operational in order to receive total payment. The spring and summer saw the reservoir almost completely filled and locals became concerned as slides and earthquakes were continuously felt around the dam. Their fears were growing and on 15 September 1963, the entire side of the Monte Toc slide closer to the lake by 22 centimetres (8.7 inches) on one day. By early October, Monte Toc moved 1 meter in one day (3.3 feet). By then it appeared inevitable that the entire mountain would slide into the lake.

 Locals were concerned, but no one sounded the alarm to evacuate the residents or workers. On 9 October 1963, engineers working at the dam noticed trees falling and rocks rolling down into the lake. The water by now had been lowered to the level prior engineering analysis felt would prevent the water overflowing the dam. In fact the engineers were on top of the dam that fateful night, watching mother nature in action as they were confident that the water level was low enough to prevent overflow of the dam. At 10:30 p.m. as the locals below in the village of Longarone watched the World Cup Soccer, unaware of the imminent danger and with no warning by the power company, the entire side of the mountain fell into the reservoir with a speed estimated to be upwards of 110 kilometers (68mph), completely filling up the narrow gorge basin. This catastrophic landslide took only 45 seconds which displaced some 65,000,000 cubic yards of water generating a tsunami with a 250 metre (820 feet) wave of water.

 The washbasin effect of the wave first pummeled the villages of Erto and Casso which were 100 feet higher up on the opposite side of the mountain. The water fell back into the reservoir and like a tsunami crested the top of  the dam destroying the villages below along the Piave valley. In four minutes of wind and terror, almost 2,000 people were killed (including the engineers from ENEL who stood atop the dam watching) and the nearby villages ofLongarone, Pirago, Rivalta, Villanova and Fae were obliterated, turning the land into a flat plain of mud with impact crater some 200 feet deep.

 Some 350 families lost all their members in this 4 minutes of terror and more than 400 children. Within 25 minutes the water was drained from the valley revealing the vast destruction. Today a memorial stands near the entrance to the dam and along the road and memorial are tributes to the children who died and to the workers.

 Oddly enough the dam was not damaged substantially. The design of the dam was a engineering model, the choice of the location was the failure. The geological structure of the area, limestone with clay all sloping towards the lake meant the landslide was guaranteed, just when and how fast was the question. 2013 marked the 50th Anniversary. The Giro d’Italia finished in Vajont to commemorate the anniversary. References:1) University of Wisconsin, Steven Dutch2) Google Map, Vajont Italy3) Seconds from disaster, Mountain Tsunami – Video (Worth Watching)4) Vajont the official site 5) Vajont – the Almost Greek Tragedy  This is worth reading.  KeyWords: Venice, Vajont Dam, Veneto Tourism, Italian HistoryGoogle

The Grand Tour: In the 17th and 18th Centuries the young wealthy of England and later joined by those of the US, were sent for 2 to 4 years traveling around Europe to broaden their horizons and give them a bit of culture. It became known as the Grand Tour. Probably the beginning of the tour book business and let’s not forget about the tour business.

Venice was on this route for these young aristocrats and on the tour for artists, writers of books and poetry as well. Some of the more famous visitors, indeed, sometimes adopting the city as their own and they had a few things to say.

Some of my favorite:

Truman Capote: “Venice is like eating an entire box of chocolate liqueurs in one go.”

Tiziano Scarpa: “Getting lost is the only place worth going.”

Fran Lebowitz:  “If you read a lot, nothing is as great as you’ve imagined. Venice is — Venice is better.”

Henry James: “Though there are some disagreeable things in Venice there is nothing so disagreeable as the visitors.”

Lord Byron: “I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs; / A palace and a prison on each hand.”

Peggy Guggenheim: “It is always assumed that Venice is the ideal place for a honeymoon. This is a grave error. To live in Venice or even to visit it, means that you fall in love with the city itself. There is nothing left over in your heart for anyone else.”

Anonymous: “Venice, the only place where you can get seasick by crossing the street.”

Robert Benchley: “Streets flooded. Please advise.”

Ulysses S. Grant: “Venice would be a fine city if it were only drained.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson: “A city for beavers.”

Erica Jong in “A City of Love and Death: Venice” “But come back in November or December, in February or March, when the fog, la nebia, settles upon the city like a marvelous monster, and you will have little trouble believing that things can appear and disappear in this labyrinthine city, or that time here could easily slip in its sprockets and take you, willingly or unwillingly, back.”

The round is our essential bead used in almost all designs. It is the easiest bead to make. You need only a mandrel, a torch and some glass.

 

It all begins with the selection of the glass canes. We use Effetre, known generally in the industry as Moretti. It is a soft glass with a COE of 104, Soda Ash Glass which contains no lead and is worked at temperatures of about 945 C which is about 1733 F.

                 The steps of making the round bead are shown below. 

All you need to make a round bead	Begin by winding molten glass around the mandre.
Add Sterling Silver Foil (or 24kt Gold Foil)	Encase the foiled bead with transparent Moretti glass.
Using the round tool assures it’s size. And it gives the Murano Glass Bead that nice smooth shape.	The final step is reheating the bead so all the glass is the same temperature. This helps prevent cracking.

 While we say that the round is the easiest shape to make, it’s still difficult work sitting in front of the heat, attempting to roll the mandrel in one hand while making sure that the cane is in the heat and wrapping around your mandrel. Well it takes some practice, rather like rubbing your tummy and patting your head at the same time.In Murano, the maestro speak about “knowing” the glass. It is a feel and knowing the exact shade of red you need to be sure the bead is thoroughly heated. Google

Since its birth, Venice and La Serenissima have survived the invasion of the Ottomans, the French, the Spanish, the Popes, the Austrians (and I have probably left out a few), but the invasion of the giant ships may be the last straw. The weekend of 21 September saw an invasion of the giants in numbers never seen before. There was a massive jam in the canal of Giudecca, partially due to the “no grandi navi” protestors who even swam in the water to stop the monsters. For a time lapse video of the ships with a view of the Giudecca Canal looking towards San Marco, made and presented Ufficio Stampa del Comune di Venezia, Click here ! A record 12 ships were projected to be in port, with 11 confirmed arrivals. This represented 40,000 tourists who arrived in Venice. Remember that Venice proper. Along with other bus tours, independent tourist, the number surges to about 60,000 tourist per day. Consider that the population of Venice dropped below 60,000 population mark in 2009. There was even a protest at the airport, the ship crews await the arrival of the tourist to transport to the boats. A widely debated subject all around Venice, only those who stand to gain monetarily from these massive cruise ships are on that side. Shopkeepers, restaurants, Murano (they are removed from the scene of possible accidents). The consideration of the contribution to Venice economy is substantial, slightly less than 200 Million Euro, represent about 20% of Venice economy. The pro and con groups include Venessia.com; No grandi navi and Cruise Venice, obviously on the side of the ships and tourism. However even in Murano we have heated arguments pro and con at the dinner table. The words on everyone’s mouth is “Venezia e unica” (There is only one Venice.) And this is true. There are about 4 plans on the table at the moment to be considered in Rome later this year. In case you want my opinion, I think it entirely selfish that a small population of people who choose to travel on cruise ships should endanger this magnificent city for joy of these few to “view up close” San Marco. Some things should be saved, protected, for the good of all – not just a few. I am not against the cruise ships, only that they are not allowed to come near San Marco, which of course sacrifices the Giudecca Canal, but I suppose in all things there must be compromise. It is not unrealistic to ask the cruise industry to protect the very city that makes them money,.Google