Ascesi

One day, a little girl received a bracelet as a gift from her grandmother. It was an item chosen with love and given with a proud smile. But she didn't like the bracelet. She never wore it. She put it in a box, and the box ended up in the basement, among forgotten things.

Years later, her grandmother was no longer there. And it was then that she felt the need to see that object again. Not for its value, but for what it held: the memory of that gesture, that look.

She descended the steps leading to the basement, where the sky is hidden and the air remains still. In that dusty darkness, she searched for a box buried under layers of forgotten objects. She opened it, looking not for a bracelet, but for that distant memory.

I wouldn't wish anyone to have to search for their most cherished memories in such an inhospitable place. The goal was to restore value to those memories and rescue them from forgotten spaces—basements, attics, hidden corners—bringing them back into the home in a discreet and dignified way. Just for what they are: silent traces of who we once were.

This is why Ascesi was created: a container designed to hold objects that may seem insignificant to others but are worth everything to us—the wrapper of a piece of candy given to us by a schoolmate, the train ticket from our first trip alone, a piece of paper with a handwritten phrase from a childhood sweetheart. Fragments of everyday life that tell the story of who we were.

The shape is vertical and totemic: five overlapping modules, each different, representing the chapters of life, from childhood to ascension. The last module is small, conical, and oriented upwards. It symbolizes the gradual departure from the material world. This is where the name Ascesi comes from, which means asceticism.

“Ascesi” is an invitation to cherish what really matters, to shift the focus from possession to memory, from the material to the immaterial. It is also intended as a legacy: an object to be entrusted to those who remain, so that they can use it to reconstruct the fabric of our lives.