Why "Zavàj"?

A strange, old, and inappropriate word, but "OH"! It's beautiful!

Contrary to what one might believe, the word Zavàj does not refer to the jewelry itself, but to the material with which they are made.

Zavàj is a dialectal word from the Bologna area that refers to those objects that have now become useless, that no longer hold any value.

"The Zavaglio was an official responsible for inventorying and appraising goods in the event of a sale or the division of an inheritance. Everything, even broken or minimally valuable objects, was inventoried. According to popular tradition, these objects were nicknamed zavagli ("zavaj"). Therefore, in Bolognese popular tradition, zavaglio refers to a broken, ugly, or unusable object, or one that cannot be economically repaired." prof. Giorgio Grassi da Bologna, Fonte: Brutta Storia, Manuale di lingua e mitologia urbana

Each jewel starts right here, from the "zavàj," from a raw material that is reused: the remnants of other processes, materials that are still beautiful but can no longer be used to produce larger objects.

Plexiglass, wood, plastic, fabrics: everything that remains and seems to have reached the end of its life is reborn thanks to a project I love to call "scartigianato," but today is popularly known as UpCycling.

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How "scartigianato" works

The "scartigiano" seeks out the Zavàj in friends' workshops, examines them, reimagines them, and brings them together to transform them into something new. This is done through a thousand (much fewer) steps, which I will tell you about in the story of the life of a scartigiano.

Zavaj is a creative research and experimentation project that values production scraps within a circular economy dynamic, creating unique pieces and new opportunities.

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"To make a table, you need wood; to make a scartigiano, you need a logo"

By now, I've chosen the name for the brand, fully aware that it may be inappropriate communicatively to use a derogatory term for things that should be beautiful, fun, and well-designed. But I like it too much, and I decide recklessly not to care about market logic. It's a crazy, stubborn, and somewhat anarchistic move that makes me feel the scent of great revolutionary enterprises.

Now, however, it’s time to give it a shape... and I dust off my passion for graphic design...

The writing will be made just like the Zavàj pieces: the letters will be like sticks of material put together to create a new form. They’ll be angular, with lines, accents, simple shapes, and assembled pieces.

Then there’s a little dot in the second “A”: it’s a small round piece of a different color because that’s what scraps are like—you have to work with what you find!

I want it colorful because there’s no way I’m settling for a black-and-white logo... I have to choose a color... I want it magenta!

Magenta is an "extra-spectral" color (ooo... spooky!) with a fascinating history: did you know it’s the color of creativity and transformation? Plus, I like the idea that it’s a pink hue because, in my mind (consciously conditioned by millennia of history), it represents femininity. I love using that dot to tell everyone that—though sometimes my necklaces have a bit of a rigid shape—the one making them is a woman!

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A pure coincidence that makes me so happy

And to wrap it up, let me take you a few steps back: about that absurd and “disparaging” name I chose for my creations.

To avoid being completely reckless, before registering the brand, I decided to check if it wasn’t a curse word in other languages. I typed it into Google Translate, set the language detection, and an all-knowing artificial intelligence suggested Slovak... The translation is: "OH", an expression that conveys astonishment and wonder. For example, "oh! how beautiful!"

"...OH", how beautiful!

And so: Zavàj it is.