Mariano Fortuny is credited for his contribution to the world of fabric and clothing design.  He is widely held to have been unenthused with the ever changing world of fashion.  Rather, his designs and form remained the same throughout his career, with change in color and fabric, exclusively.  I’ve read he was considered to be an artist, who made clothing.

High points for the educated admirer:

(1) Fortuny was an artist, with expressions in painting, drawing, architecture, photography, inventions, and fabric.  Fortuny registered 22 patents from fabric design to theatre lighting.  His father, Mariano Fortuny y Marzal, preceded him as a Spanish artist whose work is noted:

(2) Quintessential Fortuny: the Delphos pleat.  Still being sold for thousands.  The gowns are of pleated silk; the pleats were created through a patented process.  The garment was meant to adhere to the woman’s form with fluidity. One size fits all.  These gowns, to be worn with minimum undergarments, were considered provocative at the time when traditional undergarments, such as the corset, were burdensome and expected.  The bold (and often famous) were the first to don these gowns.

(3) The company continues to operate out of his original Venetian factory and sell fabric from its early roots.  It continues to represent Venice, luxury, and attention to an artisan’s detail; it recently released a limited stock of discontinued fabrics from as early as the 1960’s.

Mariano Fortuny y Marzal. An Ecclesiastic. 1874. Oil on Panel. 
Mariano Fortuny y Marzal. The painter's children, María Luisa and Mariano,
in the Japanese Room. 1874. Oil on Canvas. Museo Nacional del Prado.