Carla Badiali was born in Novedrate, in the province of Como. She spent her childhood in France, where the family had moved for work reasons; there she devoted herself to music, studying piano for eight years, and to painting. Returning to Como at the age of sixteen, Carla Badiali began attending the Istituto tecnico-industriale per la lavorazione della seta. Here she met Manlio Rho, her drawing professor as well as a Como painter among the greatest Italian exponents of abstract art, who will influence her artistic training. In fact, it will be Manlio Rho himself who will introduce her to the group of abstract artists from Como.
Throughout her life, Carla Badiali will work both in the design of fabrics, mainly for the major silk factories in Como, and in painting. In 1940 she subscribed to the Manifesto of the primordial futurist group Sant'Elia, exhibiting her works with the promoter group of the manifesto itself.
With the start of the war, Carla Badiali decides to neglect art to embrace the anti-fascist cause. Being arrested in 1945 because of her activity against the fascist regime, she was imprisoned in the San Vittore prison in Milan. After the war she resumed the activity of designing fabrics for Italian and international fashion houses, among which Dior and Chanel stand out, and it will only be from 1951 that she will return to painting and exhibiting her works.