Beautiful Silk Fabrics Are Produced In Bellagio, Lake Como

I recently was lucky enough to visit Lake Como in Northern Italy which is regarded as the City of Silk and the silk capital of Europe.

This area is so amazingly beautiful and Lake Como is probably one of the most spectacular lakes in Europe. Since Roman times, Lake Como has been a popular retreat for aristocrats and wealthy people and is still a very popular tourist attraction with many artistic and cultural gems. The Lake Como area is renowned for its silk manufacturing industry.  

 The art of silk weaving began back in 1510 and a visit to the museum in Como dedicated to the silk industry is worth a visit. In particular, the village of Bellagio is most famous for its silk fabrics, silk ties and silk scarves. In centuries past, the townspeople of Bellagio spun silk of a quality rivaled by other locations on Lake Como.

The Como silk industry supplies silken goods to the fashion houses of New York City, Paris and nearby Milan. Today in the Como region there are over 800 companies engaged in the silk and textile trade ranging from manufacturing, printing, dyeing, designing, and selling. If you own any silk garment, silk scarf or silk tie made by any big-name fashion house or world-famous designer such as Versace, Prada, Ralph Lauren, Armani or Zara, the chances are that the silk came from one of the Como businesses.

 

Bellagio is a beautiful little village located at the intersection of the three branches of the Y-shaped Lake Como in the Province of Como in the Italian region of Lombardy. You can get there by ferry and this trip is well worth it. The scenery is out of this world, the mansions on the lake front are unbelievable. It has many villas and palaces such as Villa Olmo, Villa Serbelloni and the magnificent Villa Carlotta. Many famous people had or still have homes on the shores of Lake Como. Some mansions pointed out to me were the homes of Madonna, George Clooney, Gianni Versace, Sylvester Stallone, Julian Lennon and Richard Branson. 

The village of Bellagio is known as the pearl of the lake and is famous for its unique setting. The village is very old and has narrow alleyways and stone buildings, steps and  pathways. It’s outstanding beauty and its strategic position has written it permanently into Italian history. When you arrive there you are blessed not only with the charm of this little village but also with the number of little boutique shops specializing in the most amazing silk fabrics, silk ties and silk scarves.

Bellagio was already famous in Roman times and was frequented even then as a holiday resort.  The Romans living there at the time introduced the olive trees and the laurel bushes which are still found in abundance on the shores of the lake. Small industries grew up in the area during the 16^th - 18^th centuries and most of these were associated with the Sfondrati family who were the most important family in the town for over 200 years. 

 The main industries at that time were the production of candles and silk products and  included the breeding of silk worms and the cultivation of mulberry trees required for the silk industry to progress in the town. “The silkworm is a snob," says Moritz Mantero, the third-generation owner of Mantero Seta SpA, one of the largest silk manufacturers in Como, Italy "He'll eat anything, but he produces silk only if he eats mulberry!" The difficult cultivation of silkworms has long left Italy is now done primarily in China. 

For the past two decades China has dealt with the mass-market end of the silk rag trade, whereas Como concentrated on the high end of the market. The finishing end of luxury silk production stayed in the Como region and expanded.The Como silk industry set itself up to meet the fast-changing demands and relatively small orders of luxury fashion houses.  So the silk industry is still alive and flourishing in both Como and Bellagio today. But because of its small size, Bellagio has a smaller scope than Como. However the wonderful displays of silk fabrics, silk ties and silk scarves I saw in the shop windows in Bellagio are testimony to a thriving industry there.

The walk along the lake front and up and down the different alleyways with their cobble stone paths to find stores selling beautiful hats, colorful straw bags, as well as the gorgeous silk fabrics makes the visit to Bellagio well worth it. In addition there are also really interesting art galleries, handbag stores, antique shops and hand painted pottery, kitchenware and art made out of olive tree wood.  And the cafes and eateries were to die for as well. I loved the quaintness of Bellagio and strongly recommend a visit if you can.