Archivi tag: handmade

SPLENDIDO Magazin, the Food Magazin!

“Focus on your true strength and find a niche. Don’t do it for the fame or your ego but for the matter. Convey value, ideally timeless value. Know what you’re writing about and don’t ever be seduced to become superficial or careless because the internet is quick and trashy. Be tyrannical when it comes to detail. And then: keep posting.”

 

Splendido Magazine, why did you start?!

Mercedes is mainly a writer, Juri is mainly a photographer. But for Splendido we switch roles all the time – sometimes Mercedes is behind the camera and Juri writes, and the next day it is the other way around. We are used to working together for years now and thats because we got to know each other while working together as freelancers for newspapers and magazines. But Juri started the blog that later became Splendido on his own at first, that was in 2015. He has always been a great cook and just started writing down what he was cooking. Since Mercedes loves cooking too and we both enjoyed cooking and eating together from the moment we first met, she got envious of his blog pretty quickly and was allowed to join. Eventually we decided to focus our magazine on Italian cuisine. Not only because it is the one cooking style we prefer and always come back to. Also it is a food culture with an almost infinite amount of local traditions, recipes and specialties to explore. Plus we have an apartment in Lombardy, Northern Italy, where we live up to about six months a year and travel a lot throughout Italy to learn more about Italian food and to find great spots to eat and shop local specialties. Pretty quickly we saw the interest for the blog grow bigger and decided to professionalize it.

 

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How did you start and what kind of work/preparation behind Splendido?

After we decided to professionalize Splendido in 2017, we hired an agency to help us with the visual concept and the programming of a website that resembles no longer a blog but a profound magazine with a look and feel that fitted our needs and intentions. The new website went online in the end of 2018 and immediately it was well worth the hard work and money that went into it. The website is growing steadily since and by now it really became a job rather than being a nice hobby. We put a lot of work into the content of our website and work constantly on growing our audience. But it is still worth every minute of it, because a) we get to cook, eat and travel a lot and b) there is no better feeling in the world than being a creator and work on the behalf of your own business.

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What’s so special in it?

A lot of people tell us they love not only our photos and recipes, but especially our writing. We try to write from a very personal perspective and we don’t just give instructions on how to cook something but always tell a little back story about a recipe too. Be it some witty or funny thought about life and cooking or some interesting fact about Italian food. Also we rarely give exact quantities in a recipe but rather encourage the reader to trust his own gut and develop his own sense and intuition for tasting and quantities.

We love the Italian principle of „quanto basta“, which means: no one can tell you how much of an ingredient you really need because you have to feel and taste for yourself whether its enough salt / flour / egg for your taste and also for the circumstances you’re working in.

 

How do you get inspired?

We travel a lot, read a lot, talk to people. Especially while on the road and when eating out in restaurants or visiting farmers. One of our favorite things to do is also to go for huge walks in a city like for example Milan and look at every single restaurant menu in the streets. Thats when we always come up with new recipe ideas or simply ideas for new combinations of ingredients. But inspiration can really hit you anywhere. We just launched our fashion collection (shop.splendido-magazin.de, we also ship to Italy), and therefore we collected photographs of Italian typography in the streets which we now worked with to design T-Shirts and Caps.

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Where does your passion come from?

Good question. I guess we have both always loved food, loved Italy, loved traveling and look at the world and learn about traditions, cultures, design and daily human life in general, but also loved being artists and follow our talents in the fields of writing and photography. We have always been searching for some platform to combine all of these things in a fruitful and focused way so that it could also become an independent business and source of income for us.

 

Difficulties you had to face and goals.

The goal is definitely to grow and to be able to keep exploring Italy as well as our own capacities. We have a lot of plans for the future, our fashion collection was only the beginning.

 

Suggestions/advices to someone who wants to start a blog?

Focus on your true strength and find a niche. Don’t do it for the fame or your ego but for the matter. Convey value, ideally timeless value. Know what you’re writing about and don’t ever be seduced to become superficial or careless because the internet is quick and trashy. Be tyrannical when it comes to detail. And then: keep posting.

 

Projects for the future?

Many.

Follow Mercedes and Juri here but also in FB and Instagram

PERCHE’ NO Jewels

 “If you can dream it you can do it.” W. Disney

 

Beginning.

 

Silvia Tagliasacchi: I am the third child of a Bolognese family. Like all the youngest of a family, I perhaps had the role too of breaking family patterns. Or at least to strongly question them! This has made my first 30 years of life tiring and beautiful together.

The idea of ​​creating jewelry dates back to 15 years ago. But I never would have imagined to take it seriously and work on it to create jewelry lines, with an accurate style and a studied concept.

I had a wonderful trip to Thailand and by chance… Can you believe it… I found a flyer advertising about a goldsmith course for tourists. It all took place at a teacher’s home, every afternoon for a week.

It was a beautiful experience.

I immediately fell in love with all those unusual work tools and the art of governing fire so precisely that I could melt and weld metals. In short, it was so engaging that the return backpack contained at least 10 kg of equipment, including a goldsmith’s column drill!

Years later I created my brand with a very unusual name. A name that comes exactly from the question “Why not? (PERCHE’ NO)” I question myself at a time in life that required a job and existential change. I thought that the question represented exactly what I wanted to become: “PERCHE’ NO (Why not)… Can’t it be done? Why can’t I call into question the choices of my first 40 years of life? Why can’t I bet on myself? Why can’t I think of working while having fun or… In a almost subversive way… Having fun working? Feeling that I didn’t have a real answer to this question, that there was no reason why I couldn’t really change my life, this opened up truly unexpected horizons.

 

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What’s so special in your work?

 

I make modular and reversible jewels.

I play with shapes and colors in order to have a single piece that can be transformed, to give more wearability. I make them by hand using metals and goldsmith’s techniques, along with oriental papers -worked and aged- to make them part of the metal. But I don’t think that the peculiarity of my works lies in the technique. Rather, it is the message they carry: you can change. I am convinced that our form (of human beings) has infinite mutation possibilities. We are born with the gift of transformation and we can reach this freedom. Even that of becoming asymmetric. Beauty is in the creativity of opening ourselves to transformation. Seeing that things can take other shapes or colors. And maybe at first glance you hadn’t even noticed. Here it is. To adorn yourself with something that reminds us of this amazing ability… All-female… It seemed beautiful to me.

Where does your passion come from?

 

I have always loved working with my hands, to create using my imagination. Houses, shelters, tools… anything. Then I fell in love with some materials and explored them with the adolescence inexperience and the tenacity of the self- taught. By force or luck I have always been an experimenter. My training and my studies, for the most disparate reasons, have always been the most distant from the artistic/artisan field. By force of things, I am mainly self-taught and thanks to continuous experimentation I could always learn more: hours and hours of creative errors and instructive frustrations.

I think working with my hands is a need, as well as a passion.

It relaxes me, opens my mind to a constant changing perspectives job. Sometimes tiring, sometimes enthusiastically.

Difficulties.

 

The biggest difficulty was certainly changing my career path and starting to do what I wanted: using my imagination and my hands. It was a choice I made when I already had a family and children and when common sense said that I had to move towards to a safe job and salary. This decision required a great deal of courage and confidence in my abilities and in life. After taking this leap into the dark, everything developed with great fluidity. Which does not mean without problems and difficulties, but always accompanied by solutions and possibilities.

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Your goals.

 

For the moment, the biggest goal is to live off my work. It is about waking up every morning without the effort of having to go to work. It is the feeling to be a free and lucky woman.

 

Suggestions to someone who wants to start a business!

 

Well… Go headlong, choose good masters and allies, and never stop being curious.

Future.

 

Traveling, traveling traveling. A training trip to learn craft and artistic techniques, scattered around the globe. An unhurried journey, to fill my eyes with beauty… Then I find myself fantasizing about international fairs and building an online sales network.

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Donatella

Nico’s version

Nico and I we know each other since 5 years already, and I still remember the first time we were talking on my terrace, drinking a glass of wine, the moment I thought that I needed to tell his story. He is the typical artist, the way we all imagine a creative mind: brilliant, fleeting, changing and enthusiastic about everything and every proposals!
Since then he climbed the ladder, but always being humble, passionate and curious.

 

 

Who is Nico?!

 

I grow up in Tuscany on a hill in the middle of nowhere. It was, and still is an oasis of freedom and inspiration. Surrounded by nature, as a child I helped often my dad to do agricultural activities such cutting grass or doing fire wood. This was my first contact with machines like the chainsaw. As I grew older, I started using it for carving sculptures. A lot of space, no neighbors, no noise restrictions, it was the perfect playground for me to learn as autodidact wood sculpture. When I was 17 years old I did my first sculpture, without model, protection and without a plan what a possible outcome could be.

This was the starting point of my career as sculptor.

NMH030HNM_sculptures__0066 MU_0043 MU_0040 progetto la quinta stagione 2.0 Prof. Kuno Prey

When did you start to sculpt?

 

When I was a child I always wanted to become a midwife. I do not know how this idea went into my mind, but it was so strong that I started to look for an internship in that field as I was 16 years old. The idea of giving birth to something always inspired me. At the time (nowadays I do not know how it is) this type of profession was reserved for women. Looking back at this time I think that I always had in me the unconscious desire to create something or at least to assist to giving birth to something. In the context of making sculptures I realized that it was more important to me to create something, instead of only assisting to give birth.

I decided to move to London in 2016, as I got a place at the Royal College of Arts. I always wanted to study product design.

 

HNM_sculptures__0078 2What’s so special in your works?

I am not so sure. I think that they are quite unique as I never do research before starting a new project. I do not know if something like that exists already; I also do not know where my work is going to take me.

In other words I often start with a material or a process without knowing what the outcome come will be.

 

 

 

 

 

scaffali025Where does your passion come from?

I think the most important thing about my work is that I enjoy doing what I am doing. I do not think that much about it… I just start somewhere, without knowing exactly where I am going to end. This is the reason why the first and last step in producing my sculptures is the making aspect. I do not sketch that much and I prefer not to model what am doing.

 

 

 

 

 

Your mantra? 

Start doing instead of thinking!

When you start a project, do it with love and follow your passion and choose your project topic in base of what you enjoy doing.

 

Soon the new website!

Instagram

 

 

OLIVOCRACY

“The big love we have for both Italy and the UK shaped our biggest dream and gave us the motivation to turn it into reality: offer our British friends the possibility to taste the real Italian excellences at home and experience Italy like a local on a holiday to remember.”

 

Daniele & Eleonora grew up in a small city in the centre of Italy, in an area called Umbria, well known for its peculiar medieval hamlets, its hilly landscape covered by vineyards and olive groves and its delicious food. A place away from the buzz of the big cities where you can savour the pleasures of a slow paced lifestyle and experience a deep connection to nature and tradition.
They have known each other forever but then they met again in London 10 years ago, where Daniele had moved for work and Eleonora was on holiday… “And here we are! The big love we have for both Italy and the UK shaped our biggest dream and gave us the motivation to turn it into reality: offer our British friends the possibility to taste the real Italian excellences at home and experience Italy like a local on a holiday to remember.”

When did you start the Olivocracy project?
We started Olivocracy four years ago, with a range of organic and biodynamic single estate extra virgin olive oils from Italian small producers and then we added Magna Mater, a range of biodynamic condiments: balsamic vinegars, apple cider vinegar, white condiment and Saba that is cooked grape must. Single estate in most cases or single origin. Mostly, pillars of traditional Italian cuisine.
We work with organic and biodynamic small to medium scale producers as they are more connected to the agronomic heritage and the rhythm of mother Nature. Two of our extra virgin olive oils come from a FAO GIAHS, a Globally Important Agronomic Heritage System, “outstanding landscapes of aesthetic beauty that combine agricultural biodiversity, resilient ecosystem and a valuable cultural heritage”.
For us there cannot be excellence without sustainability, for two main reasons: first, we believe that in a product that is considered excellent there should be no undesired substances. Second and not less important, one of the points that make a product excellent, together with an amazing sensory and chemical profile, is the impact it has on the environment.

We believe that farming can have a positive impact on the environment if farmers work in harmony with Nature, nurture biodiversity and prioritize revitalization of the soil.
We support short supply chain and maximum traceability, products straight from the farm to our customers, certified, tested in a lab and with no additives whatsoever.

Where does your passion come from?
A few factors came together: our love for Italy and London, our deep connection to nature and to tradition, a strong will to stand up for more environmentally friendly practices and a passion for discovering niche, outstanding products. We love networking, we love collaborating with like-minded people, we love waking up in the morning with a sense of scope and feeling that we are part of a constantly growing movement of people thinking and acting differently.

Difficulties.
Doing everything by ourselves, learning things we had never done before and not all listed in the famous 20% of the Pareto Principle :D, starting a business without external funds, a highly competitive market, make audience understand the real value of our products, the fact that we pay the producers more than fairly and how much this affects the final price.
However, every difficult step, led us here and we are learning a lot about business, our sector and about ourselves, as individuals, as professionals and as a couple working together. It just feels great and all this resonates so much with what we are and our values that even in the most challenging days, we know where we want to go and who we want to be.

Your goals.
Our goal is doing something we love which makes us grow as both professionals and individuals while having a positive impact on the society. Offering people the option of shopping with an eye (or both) to the environment, to their health and to real quality. Keep on learning, evolving and expanding. Having a great work-life balance and a job that is also a passion that fulfills us and gives us energy to invest with people we love. Stay present to ourselves and in connection with nature.

Be the best version of ourselves and a source of good energy for people we meet!

Advices to someone who wants to start a business.
Find out what your mission and your core values are and live accordingly. Everything will be much easier and enjoyable. Be humble and see a teacher in everyone and every situation, but at the same time be self-confident and trust your ability to do well what you already know and to learn what you don’t. Network with genuine interest with like-minded people and welcome debate. Keep on learning, reading, watching videos, listening to people, feeding your brain and soul. Try not to let the business take over your personal life, find time for yourself, meditate, exercise, do yoga or whatever you like to take care of yourself and stay healthy. Find time for your loved ones, love and life are a great source of energy and inspiration.

Projects for the future.
At some point, we would love to be flexible between London and Italy, so to have more time to enjoy our families and the Mediterranean weather that we love so much! Widen the range of products and the circle of people we collaborate with. Create more and more synergies with other sectors of sustainable manufacture. Work on connected projects. Being able to delegate and allocate our working time to that aforementioned 20% of things that we really love doing.

Our mantra
Be the change you want to see in the world.
We don’t inherit the world from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.
Keep calm… and call Batman!

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Donatella

ATELIER HAAS

The Road is Devendra

 

A conversation with young clothing designer Lisa Haas, 27 years old and currently based in Munich, who wants to bring back the awareness to the original hand craft and loves to create common projects as the above video. 

 

When did you start with fashion and why?

There was no clear starting point but I always felt drawn to creating things with my hands. That started at a very early age – drawing, paper crafting, crocheting… and never stopped to this day.

It happened naturally that I ended up in this field.

The passion about creating and realising your own ideas from a picture in your head until it comes alive in reality is what keeps me going. During my teenage years I started to teach myself how to sew. This resulted in designing and sewing my own graduation dress for school, although back then, I didn’t have much experience with pattern cutting. There was just this strong wish and belief to get this red dress done. And with a little help it worked out in the end.

Looking at that dress now makes me smile… but we all start somewhere. This is important.
Then things moved on from there. I did my first internship in my hometown and had the chance to do another one at Puma in London, to find out whether my wish to study fashion design after those experiences would prevail. It did.
I started with fashion because I truly love the handcraft. The ability of creating things by yourself and experiencing the whole development, every step, from start to finish causes a deep connection to what you are doing. That is a wonderful process and feeling to me. Expanding the knowledge on your craftsmanship in order to prevent it from dying out feels even more important nowadays. Actually, I prefer to say clothing design instead of fashion design, because to me that adds value to it.

Dreams.

One of my biggest dreams is to go abroad again to work with an international team in an interdisciplinary studio. The exchange between people within a team and the common work on a project towards the same goal makes me feel the special energy coming alive. Also this environment doesn’t need to be within fashion only. It is about creating the network.
At the moment, I am enticed by the opportunities of clothing design of work wear for restaurants, hotels, etc. You create clothing for real people who work there. Still, there is a minimalist and timeless design approach customized for each client, with the goal of making the uniforms personalised for every employee.
Another dream is to work as a costume designer for dance companies and music artists. I have a strong connection and love for dance, as I’ve been dancing myself for years. Here, creating clothing comes again with different challenges, this time combining customisation for each dancer while allowing optimal performance, i.e. movement.

My goal is to spread my enthusiasm with my fellow workers through the work and projects as well as the time we share together. Basically, contributing to the creative field with my work while also being able to gather people to learn and create together and thereby giving something back.

What to do to pursue goals?

Right now, I am focussing on connecting with people it would be great to work for and with. I am always open to collaborations. Currently, it feels like a transition phase. Simultaneously, I’m creating ideas and realizing outfit projects I have had in mind for a long time. I’m also working with people within the network I built up here in Munich.

time(is)less_LisaHaas_6_by IsabellaHager-mintime(is)less_LisaHaas_3_by IsabellaHager-min

Inspiration.

Stories around people and feelings that certain situations create inspire me most. This method is also how I approached my graduation collection “Time(is)less”. The concept is about the perception of time nowadays with regard to deceleration. Keywords are, amongst other things, protection and restriction. This resulted in creating some kind of ‘armour’ protecting you as a second layer. At the same time, this piece might narrow your own field of action because you wear it on top and it is not always possible to put it on fully by yourself. To me, this is a way of translating feelings into clothing. What does the wearer feel? It is my main question when creating.
Colours and textures are a source of inspiration too. Often, the fabrics are there before I really know what it is going to be. It is interesting, as sometimes the fabric just ‘tells’ what it should become. When there is a certain colour combination that attracts me, my eyes begin to sparkle. No matter where I find it… in the streets, in the landscape, in rooms, in pictures. I take photographs, sometimes some notes as well and come back to it when needed. Over time, this has resulted in some kind of photo library, a personal collection of inspiration.
Talking about this leads to another form of art that I enjoy: collages. With small cut out pictures from an existing world another new world is created. For this, I am randomly collecting newspapers and magazines to look for interesting images I can use any time later on.

Motivation.

I remind myself why I started this in the first place. It is sewing. It is gaining knowledge about the handcraft and learning within the field of aesthetics. Being capable of performing a certain task. I am also happy to spread my knowledge.
Obviously, you might reach a point in life where you rethink what you are doing right then. At that time, it may seem difficult but this hardship may bring a lot of (hidden) opportunities with it. You need to keep going, trust in yourself and listen to that inner voice. Even if the next chapter you are about to embark on isn’t clear yet.
Also, I try to reach out to other disciplines. A huge passion of mine is cycling with my racing bike. Long distance trips or climbs in the mountains always help me clear my mind and I return re-energised for new projects.

Difficulties.

What is the purpose of fashion nowadays? If you can speak of purpose… In which way do we need to produce today? These questions became more and more present over the years since the beginning of my studies.
For me, it starts with raising the perception and value of clothing in society again. There needs to be an awareness of how long it actually takes to realize a single garment, how much work and time is invested, in order to prevent it from being thrown away carelessly. The value of clothing has decreased over the years, but I also think it is slowly increasing again. We need to shift our minds and attitudes towards the worth of clothing.

My personal style is minimalistic and reduced with some details you only notice with a second, closer look. Taking inspiration from menswear and combining it with feminine shapes shows the interaction of contrasts, which I am fond of.

Even though it’s been a couple of years since I created ‘Time(is)less‘, it is still relevant today – how are we using our time nowadays and how is it influenced by society and the system’s rules?

To carry on this thought I came back to creating a timeless wardrobe representing yourself, as I still believe that clothing is a protection for yourself and your personality, that can make you feel comfortable – because unfitted, impersonalised clothing can achieve quite the opposite. Through defining your personality and the clear vision of what you want to wear in order to feel being yourself automatically leads to buying less but selected garments of good quality that have a long term space in your wardrobe. This is what I am focusing on in my work right now. Another challenge is to only make use of all the fabrics I collected over the years.

There is a love to create an outfit for someone, be it a wedding outfit and concert outfit for a cellist. My wish is to allow people to feel like themselves when wearing their outfit, it encourages them in what they are doing because it fits perfectly and underlines their personality.

My take on these issues and the future of clothing design:

Be aware of what you have and use what is already there. I believe that personalised clothing, i.e. especially made for someone, will increase its value to the owner. The awareness of how long it actually takes to create a garment needs to be transparent to consumers again to avoid the cycle of buying cheap clothes just like that and throwing them away uncaringly as soon as there is the slightest damage that could easily be fixed by someone with the most basic knowledge of sewing. To me there is magic in repairing things. Not only clothing. It shows that you care about them. Hence, I want to share not only that magical feeling with others but also give them a means of achieving this by sharing my knowledge and experience in the field.

VIDEOS – Styling by Atelier Haas

The Road is Devendra
Amy Ayanda – Visitors

Photo credits by Isabella Hager, Manuel Nieberle, Simon Freund, Lisa Haas

Atelier Haas

Donatella

MARCO CASTELLI

 

Marco Castelli

Marco Castelli was born in Sicily and started modeling in Milan after graduating from high school for brands such as Chanel, Ferrè and Benetton. His passion and his job took him everywhere, name one city… New York, Shanghai, Beijing, Tokyo and Los Angeles.

He approached also design and started designing clothes for the royal family in Doha. This new adventure took him back home. Once in Italy,  he started organizing events to promote his products. In a recent interview Marco stated: “Doha’s royal family wears clothes I have created and I obviously feel very gratified, although I also feel that mine is just a small step that contributes in bringing our nation higher on a stylistic level”

One of the most loved piece from his collection is the Bicolor Coat, handcrafted  with care  in two different fabrics; wool and cashmere. The colors available are camel and black, navy and black , ice and navy, red and black and many others. It’s incredible his artisans dedicate attention to  each single piece from the design to the packaging, every model is finished by hand giving it a special and precious touch.

Find more about what’s happening in LDC Pop-Up Store this February during #MilanFashionWeek!
For more info about the designer, please, contact: nikki@lonedesignclub.com 
Marco Castelli is also featured on the e-commerce platform of LDC www.lonedesignclub.com

 

Marco Castelli Men Jacket

Marco Costelli Men clothing

 

 

 

Anja Lauermann

“Don’t think too much. Just do it! You only know whether it works if you give it a try.”

Hallo Anja! Can you introduce yourself?!

Hi! I’m a fashion designer with my own fashion label. I’m 28 years old and living in Lower Austria, close to Vienna.

How/when did you start and where does your passion come from?

I studied fashion design at “Die Herbststraße” in Vienna and graduated in 2011. I established my own fashion label and opened my own shop in Stockerau – near Vienna – in 2012. I love creating something new related to fashion and the feeling that comes with it!

What would you say to somebody who have a dream like yours?

Don’t think too much. Just do it! You only know whether it works if you give it a try.

Do you have a place/city in which you feel more inspired and why?

Vienna is a source of continuous inspiration for me.
For instance, think about the Salzkammergut which is an area with beautiful lakes. Over there, I can immerse myself in a precious silence that rewards me with a new strength. Unlike other cities in Austria, Vienna is quieter and more convenient.

How do you concretely keep in touch with the world?

Primarily, I use my Facebook page, Instagram and my website. I post about upcoming events, photos of the new collections designed by the other Austrian creatives represented in my multi- label store and also my creations. Once a month I reach my customers with the newsletter.

Moreover, I sell my collections in other shops in Vienna, on the new onlineshop for Austrian fashion design LIEBLINGSBRAND and on different fashion markets in Vienna.

What makes you different?

I want to create fashion for every day and every type of woman. It’s also very important for me that my collections are produced in a fair and ethical way and that my customers are aware of this.

Projects for the future.

In the future I want to concentrate more on the international market.

3 words to describe you and your art and why.

Classic, feminine, elegant.

Simple feminine elegance gets in touch with avantgarde and a breeze of minimalism. The combination of discreet colors, innovative patterns, extravagant details and selected materials turn into timeless design. It’s important for me that my fashion is classic. If you buy a dress of a new collection, you can also wear it after 3 years. My fashion should be combinable. You can wear a blouse with jeans and get the casual look or you can wear it with a black pencil skirt and it looks feminine and elegant.

To know more about her collections click here

Anja Lauermann

Donatella

VeroniqueCreazioni

“I would give a little advice to the many people who in recent years have asked me the secret of my business… It’s only one and very simple: to love what you create, as if you were creating for yourself, never for the profit that could be behind it. From things made with love always derive a special light.”

 

Who is Veronica, the creative brain behind this brand?

It is not easy to define myself in a few sentences… Let’s say that as most of the people I am made up of many facets, there is definitely a strong creative side, which coexists with another who loves psychology and the symbolic world. Surely I am a person who can not live away by his passions, which are art, psychology, sea and cats! 😀

The first crazy thing about you is that you studied psychology. How it matches with your current activity?!

As I mentioned above, my soul is divided between two great loves, which compensate and that integrate each other: a more creative and intuitive side, and one who likes to devote himself to the welfare of others, and I hope of being able to always carry both of them on like I’m doing now, because doing a job that I love is a great fortune, even more if they are two! Surely there are moments of fatigue, but I have a strong motivation that comes from the fact that I love what I do, and I feel realized in carry it forward!

VeroniqueCreazioni, how did you get the idea and why?

The beginning of the deepening of my artistic side arised during many years of personal therapy, essential for the formation of a good psychotherapist. I never thought that this would become a real business, I started because of pure passion, and yet here I am, six years later, surrounded by many people who appreciate my work and many loyal customers. I experienced cyclically many types of art, from polymer clay and decoupage to knitting wool, but after discovering the world of textile jewels, two years ago, I devoted my work almost exclusively to that. It’s never a rational decision.

Like most of artists, I follow the inspiration of the moment.

How did people and family react to your decision to cultivate this passion?

My loved ones have always supported and encouraged my artistic expressions, and have always been a great support for me!

Your biggest satisfaction / regret

My greatest satisfaction, as I mentioned before, it is to have the enormous satisfaction of doing two jobs that I love, and because of that, I have no regrets at the moment 🙂

Projects for your future 🙂

My artistic nature does not fit with making great programs for the future, however, let us say that I like to imagine of being able to devote half of the week to my artistic work, and the other half to my patients, and I am working in that direction 🙂
To conclude, I would give a little advice to the many people who in recent years have asked me the secret of my business… It’s only one and very simple: to love what you create, as if you were creating for itself, never for the profit that could be behind it. From things made with love always derive a special light.

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Donatella

Tèssere Project

Tèssere is a continuous opportunity for networking and socialization. Every day, we try to add to this road we are creating. We would like to become a brand for products, and a new way of thinking about work, a way to respect people, and the enhancement of their capacity and specialty: a new way of experiencing the environment.

Tèssere is a big team of more then 10 women with different background and experiences: weavers, tailors, designers, a kind of “supporter” and a coordinator for each workshop.

Tèssere included two different artisan workshops where the textile turns through a traditional weaving technique called “de sa trama’e manta“. This technique allows the re-use of discarded textile or clothing and creates new styles or strips that become the weave in the loom that joins the woven of wool or cotton creating unique and very original artifacts.

Some years ago I had the idea to start ​​the project Tèssere. It began when I looked more carefully at an ancient artifact made with the traditional technique “de sa trama’e manta”. I thought that this product possessed an extraordinary value and it was a perfect combination of creativity and technology, history and culture of our communities. That object contained in itself another fundamental element: the recovery of what would end up in landfill. I thought that all these matters can be synthesized and linked with the social dimension of the work that would restore dignity to women and improve their quality of life. Because I dealt with social issues for years, it was natural for me to combine all these elements into a single project, so I cherished this dream for a few years until a competition announcement of the “Fondazione con il sud” allowed us to implement the project which was ultimately selected for a national competition that began December 2013. The project consisted of two workshops about thirty kilometers away from each other, in two different villages. 4 communities are involved as well as two social cooperatives, a cultural association, a society of environmental design and the Caritas all coming together for one goal: to create jobs in a new way, sustainable, with roots in the history and culture of their own land keeping an eye on the present and the future.

We are in Sardinia, in the smallest province of Italy, Ogliastra. It is an ancient land of great culture and extraordinary nature, but marked by deep economic crisis. We preferred to act, rather than feeling sorry for ourselves. We preferred to design and share ideas and dreams, rather than complain about the lack of jobs.

Tèssere is a challenge. We often repeat that with determination and courage we can overcome even the most difficult challenges. In this first years of work many beautiful things have happened: we have seen the generosity of people who donated clothes and fabrics destined to be thrown away; wasted fabric becoming transformed, contributing significantly in reducing pollution and last but not least, watching Tèssere enter the market force with quality artisan products, recognizably beautiful. We have also seen the windows of other shops with our products, our bags carried around with the natural elegance of women, new relationships blooming with other organizations, individuals, and designers, the large amount of brand new clothes donated to the Caritas for families in need; the smile and the satisfaction of women who have found jobs through us, and are still employed.

Tèssere is this and much more.

Because every day it opens a new window for us, new connections develop for our small company.

Tèssere is a continuous opportunity for networking and socialization. Every day, we try to add to this road we are creating. We would like to become a brand for products, and a new way of thinking about work, a way to respect people, and the enhancement of their capacity and specialty: a new way of experiencing the environment.

Have a look here!

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Donatella

L’ATLANTE DEI BOTTONI

Take life lightly, for lightness is not superficiality, but gliding above things, not having weights on your heart.

 

My name is Silvia, I’ m 27 and I am native of Samassi, a small village in Sardinia, although I‘ve been living in Cagliari for several years. For about a year and a half, my partner Francesco and I created a little brand called “L’atlante dei Bottoni” (The Atlas of buttons). We take care of giving life to new and different materials, especially old paper, which are perceived by many people as trash, that is why they are usually thrown away, such as dictionaries, encyclopedias and school books.
I always thought that my life’s work would have been in the historical archives, since years ago I dreamed of handling historical paper materials, and doing field research. I never thought that the way out of my impending degree in literature would be this. My passion for everything that concerns the past and the Italian language lead me to take this path now. It monopolizes all my time and gives me many satisfactions.

Where your passion / your work come from?

My passion and then my work comes out of this innate love which I feel for the past, and the way of understanding the world from people who lived in a different epoch, with eyes and a vision of things different from today.
When I happen to find definitions for words that are explained differently from our current vocabulary, or when I find words in our language that no longer exist I shudder, because it is a unique feeling and I’m so happy. I also hope that I am able to convey this feeling to all who see my work.
Another important aspect is the love I have for the Italian language, and what it represents to me that is often abused and used in a wrong way. My intention is precisely placing it at the heart, giving her the importance that it deserves. During the various exhibitions I meet people who understand my art, who are passionate and read with pleasure what is inside the various accessories. I am happy because in that moment I feel I’ve reached my goal.

Your most important achievement so far.

My biggest goal is to be able to turn one passion into a real job, I know it’s a privilege and I’m immensely proud of it. Luckily so far I have not had great disappointment. The only small exception would be when I realize that people find it hard to see the difference between craft-trade and industrial products, therefore they can’t really appreciate all that is behind the uniqueness of a product made manually by a person.

Where do you produce? 

I produce at home. I use a room as laboratory, and I often lock myself in for hours, listening a lot of music, writing, designing and slowly the ideas crop up. Sometimes I go to flea markets where oftentimes I find very often inspiration and materials that I can used for my works.

Do you have a kind of mantra to help you through rough times?

Not exactly. I have a quite particular character, I would say that I can handle myself better when in difficulty and under pressure. It may seem strange, but for me it was always been like this. Difficulties make me more productive, so much that on days when nothing seems to go in the right direction, in my opinion I can create the most beautiful pieces of my collections. In those moments, however, I tell myself that “It can be definitely worse than that” and then I see everything in a lighter and more approachable way.

Future projects?!

My project is to grow more and more, to continue to evolve and improve in every aspect and detail. Finding new ideas to develop and succeed in bringing our work beyond the boundaries of Sardinia. Last year we were able to participate at the International Handicrafts Trade Fair in Florence: we hope to have more of such experiences, because besides being really satisfactory, they are also a good way to keep an open mind and to meet different and exciting people.

How to face life and work?

Calmly and above all keeping in touch with reality. I am aware that as things can be great one moment, they can suddenly change for the worse. However, continued effort must be required and it’s important to give consistency to things in order to retain a balance.

There is a phrase from Italo Calvino (an important italian writer) that could answer this question perfectly: “Take life lightly, for lightness is not superficiality, but gliding above things, not having weights on your heart“.

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Donatella