Go to Dinner with a Centerpiece, in Milan, and create the Petalo
How many of you have come to visit our Lab? If you have, you could certainly agree with me that this is a special place, like entering Narnia. Bags everywhere (every woman's dream!), Materials, machinery, hinges, photo corner, bag corner waiting for shipment, material corner for others, the named 36 drawers a piece of furniture that gave me 1 cent every time someone looked at it and asked for it if we sold it by now I would be rich; in short, if we want a brothel made of sensations and creativity, this is our laboratory.
This premise is necessary because, for those who have never been there, it is necessary to imagine the context in which we present our new exclusive collection: a place full of creative things scattered everywhere, with practically zero empty and free spaces, a place where we ourselves lose things and magically find them at the right time.
My sister had just come from Milan for the Easter holidays about 6 years ago and immediately came to our Lab to greet us, my father was finishing about ten bags in colored suede with lasered panels that he had found in stock. Father had bought these panels 15 years earlier and paid something like 90,000 lire which in those days was a lot, also because at the time laser machines were not as fashionable or as easy to buy as they are now. Tessa immediately notices the panel and asks dad if he can have one, obviously dad's heart says yes!
Needless to say, those ten bags were not in stores more than a week, we sold them immediately and I didn't even have time to photograph them ...
Two years ago a very dear friend of mine bought a laser machine and, open heaven, the ideas started: bags, bracelets, earrings, belts, panels, that machine opened us to billions of possibilities!
We experimented with a few things but I still couldn't be fully convinced also because in my head there was "better to use it for customization?" "Better to make panels?" "If yes, with what plot?" in short, I was the first to be confused by the billions of possibilities ... I'm not telling you my father who is the artist!
Two winters ago (before the covid) I went up to Milan to find friends and my sister. When I go up I always have little time and many things to do and friends to see but we always allow ourselves an evening with my sister and on that occasion as it was cold we decided to light the fireplace and have our dinner at home.
Since she is the family cook, I watched her do it and chatted about how to do that and that or how our respective lives were going.
Dinner was ready and since she had cooked it was my turn to set the table and clear the table. Tessa passes me the plates, glasses, cutlery and the centerpiece ...... Caspiterina the centerpiece she had taken from the Lab !!!!
Obviously I go crazy because I didn't remember at all how it was made, how beautiful it was and how perfect it was in shape and design. I steal it from him (with his blessing and my promise to return it to him).
I'm going back to Tuscany with what, for me, was a trophy.
The next day I immediately bring the panel to dad, we call Bindo (my friend with the laser) and set the job: the most difficult and long part was obviously making that centerpiece a file to put in the machine to give it the "sending" that we all expected but the legendary Bindo satisfied us within a week and even brought us the first prototype . Details to be reviewed separately was perfect and he had already done it in two sizes so we could work on the three samples (we are doing the good and the exclusive collections come out with "only" three models each, we have imposed on ourselves to tell the truth). Two models were born like this, Bam, very fast, dad and I already had them in mind. The clutch bag was a tragedy, I think I had my father redo it at least 5 times (substantially changing the model) but in the end in my opinion it is the one that best reflects the collection, at least in my opinion! The beauty of fashion is that it is subjective.
For this collection we have chosen colors, after such a difficult year, each of us needs color in their own expressions of self. These 5 colors will accompany us in the various months: February, the red month, the month of the processing of the collection, March, the green month, the month of the spring equinox, the month of the launch of the collection, April the blue month, the month in which we here in Rosignano begin to go to the sea, May the Beige month, the month of sand and finally June, the yellow month, the month of wheat and sunflowers.
I hope you will follow us, as you always do, with passion in this carousel of colors and sensations.
Here you are Petalo, Petalina and Petaletta.
Olivia