At the Salone del Mobile, De Castelli presents TRACING IDENTITY, an all-female project: 7 female designers, different in terms of generation, origin and approach, have created a collection of metal furniture with a strong expressive protagonism.

Alessandra Baldereschi, Nathalie Dewez, Constance Guisset, Francesca Lanzavecchia, Donata Paruccini, Elena Salmistraro, and Nika Zupanc have emphasised the potential of De Castelli metals and finishes with projects with emotional, empathetic, and narrative content. De Castelli invited a group of women designers, identified along intimist and interpretive lines, with the intention of countering the preconception that iron is a cold and uncommunicative sphere, linked to an imagery of strength that is typically masculine.

Seven young designers, seven inimitable suggestions and works of fantasy that challenge the pride the company’s excellent craftsmen put into their know-how, but also use existing technologies and test their mettle against the many different metals which they use, sometimes in combination, in a single piece. The brief did not specify any particular function but asked that they give free rein to their design skills and expressive characteristics after visiting the De Castelli factory. The only constraints involved time, to be ready for the Salone del Mobile, the only event that counts for the presentation of the pieces. And so the title, which was initially considered as an idea for the communication, immediately became an essential guideline for the design process, defining its identity. The pattern became tighter and the threads that were initially loose were soon interwoven into a resistant fabric, the fabric of Tracing Identity.

Thanks to Zanellato/Bortotto, Tiziano Scarpa, Alberto Cavalli, Valentina Croci, Filippo Pisan, Francesca Celato, Evelina Bazzo and Leonardo Sonnoli