The laceworks created by Mira Fidanza have toured the world.
There are Pag, Lepoglava, Posavina, Hvar and other types of lace in Croatia, but when lace founds itself in the hands of Mira Fidanza from Mraclin, it always becomes – Mira’s lace. She discovered her love of textiles as a young girl, but her life took her in an entirely different direction and she became a nurse. However, she has often returned to fabrics, textiles and handmade lacework. And, when she was 60, she enrolled in a textile school to improve her skills, primarily in the field of lace. The 69-year-old Mira can now proudly say that her works have even been exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, reports Lokalni.hr on September 20, 2018.
After high school, the life led Mira Fidanza to Locarno in Switzerland, where she still lives. She occasionally sold her works at the local fairs, where they were noticed by the organisers of the Locarno film festival. The festival has been held since 1946 and, after the ones in Cannes and Venice, it is the oldest in Europe. She created the festival logo in lace and this was her first major project.
“It all started as a hobby, but I liked it so much that, after my sons grew up and after retiring, I found enough time to enrol in a textiles art school,” says Fidanza, who further advanced her skills on many courses, and today she teaches others how to make lace.
Since the beginning of her lacework career, she has exhibited her works across Europe, as well as in Canada, USA, South Africa, India, Ghana, Australia and Brazil. Mira speaks several languages: Italian, German, English, Spanish, French and Portuguese, and regularly participates in international lace festivals and conferences. She also visits international lace festivals in Croatia held in Lepoglava, Pag and Sikirevci near Slavonski Brod.
Her work “Icarus Wings” was exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, where it won the sixth prize among 268 exhibited works. In addition to exhibitions, Mira’s works can also be found on works of some of the major fashion creators, such as Valentino, Lagerfeld and others. The latest wedding dress she made was sold for 49,000 euro.
“To create lace, that is a lifestyle. It is the faith, it is the life itself. If I had a hundred years in front of me, there would still not be enough time to do everything I wanted. The process itself is pretty slow, but that is what I like and what I enjoy the most,” says Fidanza.
Translated from Lokalni.hr (reported by Jelena Ružić).
