Page 10 - Sustainability Report 2019

CHAPTER 1 | The search for beauty with a commitment to sustainability
Beauty provides an infinite source of creative stimuli that recount a freedom of expression
1.1. The legacy of a great history
Ratti’s history and the company today
“Experiencing silk is an art, today as it was yesterday” Antonio Ratti.
This is the motto, the objective of the Ratti Group, the expression of an intuition that flows from decades-long work on this precious material. Since 1945, for Ratti, silk has represented an evocation of beauty.
This has become a daily commitment involving everyone working within the Group, and balancing innovation and practicality, while always fully respecting the prowess of our professionals, protection of the environment and, last but not least, the principles and values on which Ratti is based.
In a world built on the search for beauty, in which elegance and style are part of existence, Ratti proceeds with its mission of taking care of and enhancing its cultural heritage, offering, time and time again, designs and prints in an unexpected medley of forms, spaces
and colours that become the preferred choice of major fashion houses throughout the world.
Every collection presented by Ratti becomes, in practice, the engine of this passion, which draws inspiration from its exclusive archive, culminating in exceptional care of every detail with which all fabrics and accessories are created, and which weave together aesthetic formulas, codes and designs with a strong Italian footprint. Ratti fabrics, with their elegance and artistic refinement are, more than anything else, the perfect embodiment of the spirit of this Group: a tribute to tradition as the starting point in the creation of a new language imprinted on a sinuous and noble material such as silk.
Over the years, Ratti has been notable for its attention to detail and an international outlook, to the point where it has become one of the largest Italian fabric manufacturers and was listed, in 1989, on the Italian stock market (Meracto Telematico Azionario, MTA).
Towards the end of the 1990s, the industrialist and philanthropist, Antonio Ratti, decided to pass the baton to the next generation. His daughter Donatella took the helm of the company, confirming her prowess in the
art of printing, and adding to the sensory, artistic and aesthetic value that underpins each piece of work.
In the years that followed, the Group continued to
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From Ludovico il Moro
(“the Moor”) to the industrial revolution to Made in Italy
The history of the Ratti Group is symbiotic with the centuries-old history of Como, city of silk
The development of artistry in silk in the Como area dates back to the XV century, a golden age when Italian manufacturing became oriented towards refined and exclusive products, something for which our country is still famous throughout the world, so that the expression ouvrage
de Lombardie has become synonymous with an object of precious craftsmanship.
The manufacture of silk had been brought to Europe from the Orient a few years before that, risking the death penalty prescribed by the Chinese and Japanese emperors for anyone betraying the secret techniques used to manufacture the precious fabric.
Experiencing silk is an art, today as