Elisabetta Nava Fischer Bianchetti
Sole Administrator and Artistic Director of the manufactures “Manifatture Mario Bianchetti”
Elisabetta Bianchetti, designer of the holy, is the artistic director and sole administrator of the ecclesiastical manufactures “Manifatture Mario Bianchetti”, which have been firm of excellence for more than ninety years.
Elisabetta’s stylistic and entrepreneurial adventure begins as a consequence of a path marked by milestones like a Degree in Slavic Studies, many meetings with some of the representatives of the Christian Dissident Russia in Milan, the attending of a Media Communication course to the Columbia University of New York and frequent internships to Moscow and Saint Petersburg. These milestones approach her to the passion for icons and let her become a collector and expert in Byzantine iconography.
Soon her creativity, already showed in her drawings, together with a strong interest for the holy world, leads her to the decision of taking over the manufactures’ business in 99s.
The point of departure is the cohesion between knowledge of the vestment, innovation and liturgy together with a solid background of holy art.
She runs the small restoration atelier with full passion and she creates a handmade holy embroidery division.
Elisabetta Bianchetti stores and restores Vestments, altar Cloths and Standards under the patient guidance of masters such as the Benedictines and an old artisan from Milan, who is the last heir of a studio specializing in sacred embroidery; he has been active and well known from the early Twentieth Century to the Sixties.
In 2000, she restores and makes appliqué works on a large Processional Standard of the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament on behalf of the Curia of Milan and the Parish of Inverigo. This important work soon becomes subject of a RAI International Film by Adriana Sartogo.
Elisabetta soon shocks the company in the field of style. This renovation starts from a concept of the sacred communication that has precise connotations: Truth is always the same, but the way to communicate it should be more contemporary; the Holy Cloths are the cloths of the soul so they should be celebratory, evocative and revealing of a relationship with Otherness. The these dresses’ creation comes from a path made up of analogies and quotes between ancient and contemporary, fashion and sacred.
The major newspapers of the world soon noticed her competence in the field, combined with this original creativity that is capable to mix style and sacred.
“Le Figaro”, “New York Times”, “El Mundo” and even some television media have highlighted the stylistic contribution of Elisabetta Bianchetti for the new generations of religious.
On the Jubilee in 2000, she designs and develops new tunics for the Augustinians;
In 2001, she is commissioned to redesign the Franciscan friars’ Habit, never renovated by the time of St. Francis.
In 2002, she designs and realises a Mitre for the Holy Father for the day of St. Peter and Paul, a brilliant fusion of modern design and antique embroidery.
In 2003, she exposes four of her creations as a unique example of holy vestments’ fashion design to the Museum at F.I.T. of New York for the exhibition “Fashion Italian Style” about the Italian style of the past decade.
In June 2003, “Fashion Theory”, the prestigious British magazine about Theory and Anthropology of Fashion, publishes a long article on innovation and the work of Elisabetta Bianchetti, and defines her as the designer of religious and symbolic clothing in the Catholic world.
In 2004, she plans and supervises a show for the Rimini Meeting, dedicated to the relationship between liturgy and daily “La Bellezza Donata, lo splendore della liturgia” (“The Given Beauty, the splendour of the Liturgy”). A path experience between modern human being and mystery, between daily life and the beauty of the liturgy, seen as event of the Truth.
In 2005, she collaborates and draws with the American stylist Calvin Klein in order to create the new habits for the Cistercian monks of the Abbey of Sept Fons in France.
In 2007, the CEI commission selects and awards her chasuble during a competition for artists and designers, who are active in the religious sector, and gives it as a present to Benedict XVI.
In 2009, she joins the great project of the concelebrating of the Pope in Brazil, she works with Brazilian designers to create vestments; the result is a modern fusion of handmade textile technology rooted in the territory and refined traditional technique.
In 2011, during the XIV International Exhibition of Furniture, Liturgical Objects and Design for Worship in Vicenza, she is awarded for her career and artistic talent from the Commission presided by Mons. Santi, Architect and AMEI (Italian Ecclesiastical Museums Association) President.
Elisabetta Bianchetti is married and has two children; she lives and works between Milan and Rome.
Moreover, she collaborates with international auction houses; she deals with textile and garments restoration, researches, and collections of ancient embroidery.