Men wish to understand women but they really have little idea what we think or about the enormous energy that we have. So it happens that a woman can flourish and be reborn with new lives like a cat, just as happened to Daniela Raccanello.
We met for the first time more than three years ago, when we decided to create together a solar necklace and Daniela had been introduced as the one who could design it. At that time, in the company they did not call her a "stylist" and her work place was not the stereotype one would expect of a "creative" one. It was a neat place, with some specific jewellery tools but without photographs, sketches or other "self-incentivising" elements.
On that day, Daniela was bent over her work with needle and thread, and her face was hidden by many blond curls. She asked precise technical questions on forms and conditions that have to be respected. Every so often someone came to her desk to study some new ergonomic solution, but nothing was revealed of her exciting originality.
Days passed and we were presented with a proposal for a photovoltaic jewellery collection: one to leave you breathless. We decided to shot a documentary, where as usual everyone had to repeat the scene except Daniela Raccanello. She was the only one who had what it takes naturally and everything ran smoothly the first take:
"Creations come naturally from handling, my hands start to move and I let myself go to create new forms with my mind".
During these subsequent years I have been able to spend a lot of time with her and she never ceases to amaze me. The Chicche collection of Dorica is something that leaves every woman with the desire to wear these jewels and to try out different colour combinations.
But nothing compares to the gold and silk jewellery. This adventure began on a rainy August with her inseparable husband Giampietro Zonta. Daniela Raccanello had decided to experiment with new forms of jewellery. She had seen Sophia Loren and other actresses of a certain age wear head and neck scarves to hide wrinkles and she decided to create something special with silk and gold.
But there was one small problem for her ideal dream: no more Italian silk. Daniela Raccanello and Giampietro Zonta have followed a very particular philosophy to respect environmental and social sustainability. Their home and their company are energy efficient and all their production is certified Made in Italy. How to achieve that?
Another quality of Daniela Raccanello (apart being an amazing cook) is the ability to do research on internet and she spends her evenings browsing the net. She found the last of sericulture experts who still remembered the spinning mills, the last research bachiculture center silk still open in Europe, and with her husband they bought the last Filandina (silk spinning) that had been kept running for educational purposes.
The rest is now a well-known story, a story that evolves day by day and is seen on televisions around the world that come to Dorica to shoot gold and silk jewellery and the Filandina unravelling the cocoons.
Daniela is a fashion designer and creative as few people I have met. Yet her modesty does not make it immediately visible. She is a woman to be discovered on tiptoe, who will not let herself go with everyone and she always seems a step behind her husband - except to be a step ahead when she becomes the queen of her house.
Once my homeopath gave me a book, ‘The Power of Now’, inviting me to be able to enjoy the present moment in order to be happy. Daniela Raccanello is so, and my vision of her is seated at home on her deck in the garden with a blanket, while enjoying every night the view over Bassano del Grappa and the starry sky, being happy for the beauty of the world.
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