Her name is Maria Gianola, she is 86 years old, 74 of whom spent sewing
VAL DI CHY. Eighty-six years magnificently worn, Maria Gianola, for all Mariuccia, with 74 years of uninterrupted activity behind her, is the dean of the Valchiusellese seamstresses.
A visual problem then forced her to limit herself to small repairs, thus abandoning the tailor-made women’s clothing that made her artisan tailoring famous far beyond the borders of Valchiusella. Vacationers from Turin and the Milanese who had met her during their stays in the town were in fact among her most loyal customers. And to think that when she was young she could have been hired by Olivetti.
“I already had in mind to be a seamstress, so much so that I had followed a cutting course in Ivrea and then the prospect of working in the factory did not appeal to me”, explains Mariuccia, who lives with her husband Leandro Targhetta Dur, a former Olivettian, at the ” Truc del Dur ”, a hill not far from the lake in Alicante and which dominates a large slice of the Canavese plain. A life of sacrifices for both of them, to allow their son Diego to study until graduation.
«It often happened that I worked until midnight to complete urgent work, because I wanted to be faithful to the commitments made with customers – he says -. In short, I liked to keep my word. And it also happened that, waking up in the night, I thought of a detail that could have embellished even more a dress I was making. At that point I would get up and go to the sewing machine », says Mariuccia who then remembers when, in her youth, between Alice’s village and the Gauna hamlet, there were ten tailors. He made wedding dresses and dresses for the priories, when the patron saints were still celebrated with great fanfare in the valley. And then the uniforms of many teams of orange throwers of the Ivrea carnival. In addition, of course, to common clothes and for special occasions.
And if an item of clothing had to be modified or repaired, Mariuccia was a guarantee. The seamstress Gianola has also had to deal with some difficult and insatiable customers, as often happens when you work in contact with people. «To those who never liked anything, even with polite ways I advised to turn to another seamstress» she recalls with a smile.
Two sewing machines have been used over the years by the alicese seamstress. First a Necchi and finally a Singer. Pieces of history. “I’ve always used pedal machines,” he explains. «Some time ago my niece Chiara Luna tried to sew a zipper with my Singer. Seeing her in trouble, I explained that it was necessary to coordinate the brain with the movement of the pedal. He gave up on continuing, telling me that perhaps it was easier to obtain a driving license ».
Countless apprentices took turns in his atelier. Even little girls, just to learn how to sew a button, sew a zipper or make a hem. In recent days Mariuccia Gianola has received a visit from two university students, a Sicilian from Enna and a girl from Caluso, who are taking part in the “Valchiusella Laboratory”. The meeting with the elderly seamstress pleasantly struck the two university students, armed with a tape recorder so as not to miss a single passage of her precious testimony. –