name: Celata
client: Alessi
date: September 2015
project assistant: Dario Gaudio
photo credits: Agustina Bottoni

The “Celata” basket is a result of the company’s continuous research into experimentation with new languages that emphasise the processing of cut and folded steel sheets, a manufacturing process heavily connected with Alessi’s production history. Giulio Iacchetti takes up this challenge by designing a basket inspired by the part of the helmets of medieval knights that protected their faces. Equipped with slits, the sallet (‘celata’ in Italian) enabled knights to see out, and this was the designer’s inspiration for a basket created from a piece of cut sheet metal in which the large expanses of material alternate symmetrically with the empty spaces. “The shape of the “Celata” basket – according to the designer – is inspired by the mobile part of the helmet used in the Middle Ages, the ‘sallet’. The object reproduces the openings of this mask that protected the face, creating an alternating effect of empty and filled spaces. During production the structure of the basket is created using a remarkable process. Indeed, it emerges out of a flat sheet of metal that, when folded, gradually becomes threedimensional, creating light and shadow effects.”