17 April 2026
On 16 April 2026, on the occasion of the 5th Biennale di Tecnologia, Slow Fiber organised, in collaboration with Slow Food Italia, the event "Nutrire i sensi dal cibo al tessile: una degustazione di maglieria®" ("Feeding the Senses from Food to Textiles: a knitwear tasting"): an unusual tasting experience, inspired by the values of good, healthy, clean, fair and durable, designed to reflect on the sustainable textile supply chain.
La Degustazione di Maglieria® is an immersive experience conceived by Slow Fiber, which brings the worlds of food and textiles into dialogue through the senses. It represents a new outreach model capable of making complex themes accessible, such as the origin of fibres, biodiversity, circularity and the value of sustainable supply chains. The initiative, able to engage different audiences, has been designed to be replicated in cultural, corporate and educational settings.
The experience stems from a simple reflection: textiles and food are two worlds united by the same natural origin, which, over time, have nonetheless stopped being perceived as part of a single narrative. Fibres such as cotton, wool and silk come from crops and livestock farming, just like many of the foods consumed every day.
To rebuild this connection, participants are guided through a journey in which sight, touch, smell and taste reveal analogies between textile materials and culinary preparations, highlighting shared values such as quality, attention to raw materials, biodiversity and respect for natural cycles.
La Degustazione di Maglieria®, held at the Biennale, offered a journey through a series of pairings between textile materials and culinary preparations. The experience opened with the encounter between the softness of extra-fine Merino wool and cashmere from Pettinatura di Verrone and a spring velouté soup with cabannina prescinsêua and savory focaccia, prepared by Slow Food Alliance chef Natalia Mazzoli. The dish was cooked using a felt cooking box insulated with reclaimed native wool, developed by the Filo&Fibra Cooperative of San Casciano dei Bagni — a concrete example of how textiles can also contribute to low-impact cooking practices.
Quagliotti cotton, the result of research aimed at reducing the environmental and social impact of the supply chain, was paired with crackers made by Panacea Social Farm using spent brewer's grain, onions and ginger, telling the story of circularity and resource recovery.
The journey concluded with the pairing of silk from Filati Buratti and Alpine wildflower honey, a Slow Food Presidium produced by San Lorenzo 1776 Apicoltura in the upper Chisone Valley. A pairing that highlighted the role of biodiversity as a shared element between food and textile production.
Through direct, active engagement with the public, La Degustazione di Maglieria® demonstrates how sustainability can be approached and understood not only through data and technical content, but also through sensory perceptions and relationships.
The Turin experience is part of a project already tested by Slow Fiber and destined to be further developed and proposed in new settings. "We want to spread an innovative and easily replicable outreach and experiential model," says Dario Casalini, president of Slow Fiber. "We are used to hearing the stories behind our food, much less those behind our clothes and home textiles. The strength of this format lies precisely in its ability to speak to a broad audience, giving everyone the opportunity to reflect on and discover the many steps that make up the textile supply chain, reaffirming a principle that is fundamental to us: only what is also good, healthy, clean, fair and durable can truly be beautiful."
