What cannot be told
Then there are the intriguing, less anecdotal secrets kept by companies such as this one, meaning that Taroni cannot reveal the names of the haute-couture fashion houses that its supplies, or the costumes for famous movies it has made, or the VIPs it has dressed – although such information would help them to become better known. It’s one of the rules of the game, one that runs against the former trend, when the big fashion designers boasted about their collaborations with local artisans and experts: Roberto Capucci, Fendi, Mila Schön, Valentino and Saint Laurent, to name but a few venerable ones.
What must be told
Just like Cangiari’s archive is being constituted with intellectual heritage nursed back to life generously and meticulously through ordering, interpreting and transcribing the past, Taroni’s archive “is being preserved and made appreciable under a far-sighted and long-term outlook that has required a long effort and specialised personnel,” says Margherita Rosina, a fabric historian who is studying the Taroni case. To have an idea of the numbers, over 6,000 articles have been filed and digitalised. The archiving of about 3,000 large swatches in all their colour variants in still underway. Then Rosina turns to Maximilian Canepa. “Signor Canepa, I saw Capucci yesterday. He asked me to tell you that everything is just perfect, but that he’d like a purpler shade of purple. He said to just say it like that, and you would understand.”
There is the secret.