In the plains of Salento, the southernmost region of Italy affectionately known as the “heel” of the Italian boot, centuries-old olive trees cover the landscape. Even well into October, the air is warm and the light golden. It’s here, in the town of Casamassella—along one of the unpaved roads that lead from the town into the countryside—that you’ll find the vast estate of Fondazione Le Costantine, a weaving and embroidery laboratory that also provides a haven for female victims of violence and abuse.
Since 1901, when Carolina de Viti de Marco and her sister-in-law Harriet Lathrop Dunhman established the Casamassella School for weaving and embroidery, this sprawling complex has been dedicated to the economic emancipation of women. A weaving and embroidery laboratory in the foundation’s Villa Carmosina serves as a hub for the preservation and recovery of the artistic and artisanal heritage of the Salento region. But beyond craft, the weaving initiative aims to give women the opportunity to acquire skills and forge a durable livelihood. The secluded laboratory also allows them to exchange their experiences with other women and, ultimately, stay protected from their abusers.
Approaching the lab, you can hear the rhythmic hum of the looms. Inside, you’re welcomed by an exhibit of the products made by the head weavers—colorful woven totes and handbags, house linens in rich patterns, soft scarves in silk and cashmere, and even sandals with woven details made in collaboration with a local footwear manufacturer. Everything is created on the workshop’s antique looms, but the results are often surprisingly modern. Indeed, the craft traditions converge with contemporary design so beautifully, that even big fashion players like Christian Dior have turned to Le Costantine for artisanal production.
Within Italy, violence against women is an enduring problem. According to a report published by the Statistics Office of the Puglia Region, where Le Costantine is located, domestic abuse shelters registered 2,258 new visits in 2022; alongside cases of physical and psychological violence, women report abuse that is economic in nature. Nearly half of the women in the Puglia survey said they’d been controlled financially by their abuser, or had their finances taken advantage of. Programs like the one at Le Costantine offer such women a way out.
“Our founders believe that women, to be free, need to have economic independence,” says foundation President Maria Cristina Rizzo, who sees herself as carrying on the work of sisters Lucia and Giulia Starace (Carolina de Viti de Marco’s daughters), and their cousin Lucia De Viti de Marco (Lathrop Dunhman’s daughter). The three visionary noblewomen established the Foundation in 1982 to continue the spirit and vision of their mothers. Today, that work finds women referred from shelters in Puglia taking up residence at the estate while studying under the foundation’s head weavers. “It’s better that they’re removed from the environment of the abuser,” Rizzo explains.
As well as the fort-like laboratory, the Villa Carmosina grounds also house a bed-and-breakfast and restaurant. When I arrive for a visit, there’s a lunch prepared—in classic Salentine tradition— of fresh mozzarella, local tomatoes, and wine, and Rizzo instructs me in the proper way to eat frisella, the local, biscuit-like bread: dip it in water, slice a tomato, rub it against the wet bread, and top it generously with olive oil and oregano. Soon, an array of local cheeses arrive at the table, delivered by Rizzo’s husband, Giovanni, and a few of the women who help Rizzo administer the weaving initiative. They share a handful of its success stories—women who, thanks to the program, have found new opportunities—and praise Rizzo’s dedication to sustaining the foundation. Fundraising is key, with money coming from a mix of private donations and intermittent government support. Earnings from product sales help keep things going, too.
Rizzo’s official title is “president,” but she prefers to be called a “fighter.” She’s experienced the pernicious effects of gender inequality firsthand and decided at a young age that she wanted to join the battle against it. “I have a strong aversion to any form of injustice, and that includes gender-based injustice,” she says. Rizzo had to enroll in university in Milan behind her parents’ backs; after receiving a degree in law in 1984, she returned to Salento, a region where opportunities for ambitious young professionals were in short supply. “I wanted to give back to my land,” she says.
The region is in better economic shape today, and that’s in part thanks to Rizzo. For nine years, between 1998 and 2009, she served as the mayor of Uggiano La Chiesa, one town over from Casamassella. The first woman in that position, she made gender equality a priority, introducing the ‘50-50’ law, which ensures parity in any elective assembly, and establishing a gender-balanced municipal council. Rizzo was still mayor of Uggiano La Chiesa when she arrived at Le Costantine in 1998. One of her first moves on behalf of the foundation was to get the looms back up and running.
Not everyone supported this investment of time and resources. “Amid globalization, a weaving workshop with antique looms seemed to have no future,” Rizzo explains. She decided to make that future. “The beauty of craftsmanship could either die out or be revitalized. We revitalized it.”
After gelato and coffee, lunch is over, and it’s time to return to work. Rizzo takes me into the laboratory’s inner sanctum, where the head tessitrici (weavers), clad in white lab coats, work the foundation’s traditional four-shaft looms. Together, they compose a symphony of sound and texture, hands and feet moving rapidly to knit together vibrant threads into patterns of dazzling complexity. Seeing the weavers at work, you understand how this practice evolved into modern-day computing; the patterns have to be programmed into the looms, to put it simply. The work is both physically vigorous and highly technical.
Filomena Paiano, known in the lab as Lena, is considered a veteran amongst the tessitrici. She brings me behind her loom to explain its setup of warp and weft. “It’s a lengthy task that at least two people must do,” she says. Each design uses about four hundred threads, and the initial threading is all done manually, which contributes to the length of time—usually five or six hours—it takes to make a piece of fabric. Lena learned the craft through her sister, a weaver at Le Costantine working under one of its founders, Giulia Starace. “I also worked briefly with Giulia. By the time I arrived, she was an elder, but still around giving us advice,” she recalls fondly.
The weavers were at work on various designs that afternoon. Some were Le Costantine signatures; other patterns dated back to the 1900s. A few had been commissioned by clients. Silvana Rubrichi worked on a wide crimson and burgundy rug, and next to her, Carla Melfi pedaled through a slim, navy blue table runner. Under hanging portraits of Lucia and Giulia Starace, Germana Negro crafted a short yet intricate cotton and silk runner, her fingers moving with the delicacy of a surgeon, but the speed of a pianist.
In an adjacent area, with the guiding sheet of her design affixed to a pole of the loom, Rosaria Schito prepared to weave by loading her weft thread into a rotating machine in the back of the room (the sole motorized device involved in the creation of pieces at Le Costantine). Like Paiano, the laboratory’s eminence grise, Schito learned the trade from one of Giulia Starace’s students. When the looms went back into operation in 2002, she returned as a teacher.
Rosalba Cariddi, Le Costantine’s seamstress, is in charge of assembling the textiles from the laboratory into the many products offered by the foundation. “They make the fabric, and I turn it into this,” she says, showing me around a room filled with bags, pillowcases, rugs, and even woven lampshades. She works alone, in silence. Like many of the weavers, she prefers it that way. The rhythmic clicks and clacks of the looms are music enough, and chitchat interferes with the intense concentration the weaving requires. There’s also a therapeutic quality to the quiet. “It’s what a lot of the women [from the anti-violence programs] need, to be in silence, in a safe space, focusing on something completely different from their reality,” says Rubrichi.
“I’ve noticed that here, everyone feels at home,” Alessandra Rubrichi tells me while we look across the fields of olive trees that surround the property. After studying business at university, she pivoted to weaving, completing a nine-month training course at Le Costantine. She now serves as its sales and production manager. “After our collaboration with Maria Grazia Chiuri, the interest in us has increased; people are very curious to discover us, and I’m very proud of that.”
In early 2020, Chiuri, the creative director of Christian Dior, began flirting with the idea of showing her resort 2021 collection in Lecce, the province encompassing Casamassella. Chiuri shares a special bond with the area, as her father is a native of nearby Tricase, and she often vacations in the Salento region. Witnessing the impact of pandemic lockdowns on the fashion industry, she realized “how hard this could be on the Italian craft system.”
“I knew how many small companies in Italy depend on fashion,” says Chiuri, who decided that, as well as showing in Lecce, she’d collaborate with local artisans to produce the collection. This led her to Le Costantine. “The day after our first call, she was here,” watching the weavers and diving into the archives, recalls Rizzo. The designs used by Dior were taken from the workshop’s historic patterns. “It was important to highlight what they can do and to share their vision,” Chiuri explains, noting that in Southern Italy, weaving and embroidery have traditionally been considered low-status domestic work for women. For her, putting the work of the tessitrici on a high fashion runway was a way of giving the craft its due.
In the corner of the laboratory, in a small, shrine-like space half-hidden by a loom, fabric swatches from Dior’s resort 2021 collection are displayed beside a board covered in photos of the finished runway looks. The women are proud of what they accomplished, both in terms of artistry and their ability to meet the logistical demands of a large company like Dior. “It was incredible how they met the delivery schedule; our production director was very impressed,” notes Chiuri, who has continued to support the foundation. In the past few years, she has advised Le Costantine on creating a small collection of its own, connected them to other local manufacturers—such as their collaborator on the sandals—and even given them tips on how to make their Instagram pop. “I told them they needed cooler photos,” says Chiuri, with a laugh.
There’s plenty to photograph: Incredible women, incredible textiles, and an indelible, sun-drenched landscape of olive groves and processions of sheep. And if you close your eyes, your other senses continue the story. The music of the looms. The smell of the Apulian Sea. The soggy crunch of frisella. All of this, woven together—so to speak—in a place of healing and creativity.
In this story: styling, Virginia Cuscito; makeup, Angela Di Gioia; hair, Suzana Neziri.