Venice, since 1870

Lace, a precious and coveted ornament from the sea

You cannot describe Jesurum without referring to the history of lace, just as you cannot talk about the history of lace without referring to Jesurum.
In the 16th century, Venetian lace was known and appreciated throughout Europe, thanks to astute Venetian merchants, ably assisted by famous artists who willingly provided designs and inspiration for this noble art.
Lace originated from the need for suitably trimmed and decorated household linen. According to a popular legend, a sailor returning from a long voyage brought a piece of strange seaweed, Halymedia opuntia, known by seafaring folk as "mermaids' lace", as a gift for his sweetheart. The sailor soon returned to sea and to console herself, the girl copied the beauty of the seaweed in her lace.
In Venice, lace had been used since ancient times in clerical vestments and it soon became appreciated as ornamentation for rich medieval and renaissance garments. When it was adopted for use on everyday articles, it rapidly gained popularity and commercial production began to satisfy the numerous orders reaching Venice from all parts of Italy and elsewhere.
According to official documents, the monarchs, aristocracy and churchmen of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries spent fabulous sums on fine lace to decorate fans, sheets and curtains, men's and women's garments and even shoes.
The lace industry reached its peak of excellence in Venice in the 18th century and was so greatly appreciated that not only working class women and nuns, but also aristocratic ladies devoted themselves to its production.

A century later, Morosina Morosini Grimani opened a school for "Lace and Other Curiosities" at Santa Fosca with 130 workers. The lace was made exclusively for her and she was fond of giving lace as a gift to churches and the most elegant ladies of the European courts.
When Morosina Morosini died, the lace making school closed, but the lace makers' skills were not lost. The art continued to flourish in homes, small workshops and convents. Several artists such as Cesare Vecellio drew numerous beautiful designs and many types of point were invented (knot point, square net point, Burano point and needle point).
After giving rise to the greatest schools in France and beyond, French competition first and then industrial manufacturing, together with the decline of the Venetian Republic led the art of Venetian lace to decline. A long period of inactivity followed, and the production of the XIX century was hardly ever up to the quality of past tradition.

The rebirth of an ancient culture

It was not until the liberation of Venice in 1867 that many dying trades were revived. And this was when, by a happy coincidence, the art of lace making - apparently lost for ever - was revived simultaneously and independently by two men, Paolo Fambri and Michelangelo Jesurum.
Their initiative also brought new life to a typically Venetian trade, creating jobs in a city where unemployment and poverty had reached dramatic proportions.

Jesurum, a story between art and success

Michelangelo Jesurum attended the Venetian Academy's design courses and assisted his father, owner of a fabric shop. In the drive to revive Venetian lace making, Michelangelo Jesurum was particularly keen to re-establish the art of pillow lace making. On the island of Pellestrina, he soon discovered an old lady able to work with the bobbins essential for this art.
He moved to the island with his family and learned the art from the old lady, enabling him to teach it to others. On his return to Venice, he opened a workshop in Campo Santi Filippo e Giacomo (just behind Piazza San Marco) and this expanded as the lace industry developed. It was 1870.
Further large-scale workshops were incorporated, including the Sant'Apollonia church where a lace making school was set up. Other schools were founded on Burano and Pellestrina and in Chioggia, employing almost 3,000 lace workers, the wives and daughters of fishermen who worked at home, while continuing to see to their domestic chores. These women bent tirelessly over their pillow lace, manipulating the three or four thousand threads on the same number of bobbins with amazing skill.

Not content with merely producing traditional lace, the entrepreneurial Michelangelo Jesurum also created new forms such as polychrome lace made with multicoloured threads, such a success that it won first prize at the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1878.
Jesurum rapidly gained international recognition and its collections won a place on the market at the highest levels. Its lace and embroidery enriched the trousseaux of the European aristocracy and Jesurum became the official supplier to the Italian royal family.

Revival of this artistic trade was in the finest artistic tradition of Venice, especially in light of the apparently insuperable difficulties involved, helped by the fact that it coincided with a revival in the fashion for lace and embroidery.

Particularly worthy of note was the tablecloth in Venetian point, commissioned from Jesurum by Margaret, Queen of Italy, which took ten years to make. Two copies were made at the same time by the work teams, with Jesurum retaining the "reserve" copy.


The years of crisis and the rebirth

Michelangelo's heirs continued the trade, but as the years went by, it became less economically viable, although still widely respected. The outbreak of the First World War in 1914 brought lace making to an abrupt halt as exports to Austria, Hungary and even America ceased almost completely, while Jesurum was called on to produce woollen garments for the soldiers.
Unfortunately, the end of the First World War signalled only a slight recovery in the firm's fortunes and the Second World War struck a further bitter blow. The period of stagnation lasted until the 1950s when Jesurum was re-founded by the Levi Morenos family who had taken over the company in 1939. This family can also take the credit for having saved the historical collection of lace and the company's archives during the war and for preserving the name of Jesurum with style, taste and refinement, enthusiastically retaining the noble traditions of the past.


Jesurum today

Since then, the Jesurum of yesteryear has returned to the markets of the world and today, after 130 years, it continues to produce collections in which the refined spirit of Venetian culture is interpreted in a modern key to produce a range of household linen for the table, bedroom and bathroom. Its products are characterised by hand-crafted detail and unique "taylor-made" items or exclusive patterns can be ordered as required.
Over the years, the Jesurum tradition has continued, evolving contemporary forms in which elegance is not sacrificed to today's need for practicality - classic lace, woven today on the looms of yesterday, then embroidered by skilled hands with the craftsmanship of times passed.
Environmentally aware, Jesurum uses largely natural fibres such as linen and cotton, bringing out the best of the craftsmanship developed down the centuries and the vast knowledge of materials. Keeping faith to its tradition of originality, rejecting all forms of mass production, Jesurum still today continues to satisfy the demands of an ever more numerous and distinguished international clientele.

The Company has been recently taken over by a group of entrepreneurs who are relaunching and developing the brand name at international level. Besides planning important investments for the increase of the product range and the collections, the new owners have launched a strategic plan including new company boutiques thoughout the world and the develpment of "corners" in the most important international department stores.


The products

Jesurum collections are still today exclusively manufactured in the Venetian area; they revive and update the Venetian lace and embroidery tradition in full respect of the highest standards of craftmanship and quality of materials used.
Refined and original collections together with the more classical collections embellished by white, écru and polychrome lace (created by Michelangelo Jesurum at the beginning of the XX century) respect Jesurum's ancient tradition in image and décor, while combining it with new homewear trends.


Our customers

Jesurum boasts a prestigious customers portfolio.
In its 140 years of history, it has supplied the most important European Royal families and it also became the official supplier of the Italian royal family. Jesurum has in time supplied aristocratic and noble families as well as world-famous personalities.
Jesurum has decored the homes of the most famous movie and show-business stars and the most important personalities of the political, financial and high society world who regularly choose its collections and ackowledge in the Venetian brand name a unique style and quality.
Jesurum counts among its clients the late Henry Fonda, Elizabeth Taylor, Paul Newman, Liza Minnelli, Henry Kissinger, Celine Dion, Sarah Ferguson, Elton John and Woody Allen.

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