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Walking over to the square printing screens that are stored on a rack on wheels, Cavalli chooses one that depicts a zebra stripe and, with the help of an employee, places the screen over a table that is stretched tightly with plain white silk. Cavalli checks that the screen is clicked in place on both sides of the table, pours out a thick glob of black paint, grabs a wooden bar and smears the paint to the other side with it. Afterward, he lifts up the screen to show the design. Ten minutes go by, and the process begins again, this time with white paint. "Each different color in a design needs a screen," he explains. "So 16 colors means 16 screens." Most of the plain white silk and sky blue wire printing templates come from Albisetti in Cuomo.
After the colors of the print dry, they are permanently fixed in an enormous washing machine--like apparatus. Since the process makes the material starchy and stiff, however, it has to be steamed for an hour in another machine and then rolled out and softened.
The process is long and complicated, but Cavalli remains adamant about keeping his operation in Italy despite the lure of cheaper labor costs in China. "China is today's obsession," he says with disgust. "They try to copy everything, and it is terrible. In a couple of years, many factories will close because of China, and this is just the beginning."
There is one step in the printing process about which Cavalli swears nobody else in the world knows. He walks over to where a young technician sitting in front of a computer has scanned a design that is being printed out on yards of white silk using a machine called the Monna Lisa. "After an hour, I can have material in my hand," Cavalli says, considerably impressed. "It's good because it allows me to try ideas out and see them immediately. It stops me from making mistakes."