“We love things that have deep roots and we are convinced that in a world saturated with objects, products should first of all provide services”. These are the words of the two entrepreneurs Matteo De Ponte (brand manager of Driade for over ten years) and Laura Mascagni (a lover of art and design), who have launched this new Italian design trademark, making its debut at the last Salone del Mobile: Colé, a name connected to a shared memory, from Argentina, Macagno’s native land. Recollections are the key with which to decipher the first pieces of the collection: seats, tables, cabinets and a wardrobe based on reflection on the furniture of the past, reinterpreted in terms of subtle contamination (of signs, materials and cultures), wittily updating established forms. Designed by the studios Lorenz/Kaz (Catharina Lorenz and Steffen Kaz) and Aksu/Suardi (Sezgin Aksu and Silvia Suardi), as well as the in-house Colé Design Lab, the first collection also stands out for an idea of a sustainability that coincides with the zero-km concept and the possibility of making all the parts of products in a single district, to support local craftsmen and semi-industrial companies while reducing transport: “We began by thinking about the beautiful, comfortable things that have stood up to the test of time”, De Ponti and Macagno explain, “and we immediately understood that another key word of our project would have to be craftsmanship”. The lightness of the entire collection is reflected in the corporate image: handled by Francesca De Ponti and Filippo Donisi, it is based on a game of subtraction in which a few graphic signs – extrapolated from an original organic form – narrate a world made of pure forms and color, where the relationship between full and empty segments plays an essential role.