Fanano (Modena) – Once it had a spinning mill, various dye works, weaving workshops and tailoring ateliers. An artisan heritage, handed down from generation to generation, made up of knowledge and skills. Now Fanano, not even three thousand inhabitants on the mountains of Modena, has rediscovered the ancient vocation. «But it is not a nostalgic operation: we have returned to the starting point, yes, but innovating the tradition», says Luisa Ciocci, president of Ortika, a cooperative society with eleven members that has brought back to life the fabric obtained from the stem of the black nettle to produce women’s and men’s clothing, with two ongoing collections and some flash capsules.
Skirts, pants, tops, shirts, dresses. Sometimes they are made from one hundred percent nettle, sometimes they are made by working the stem together with hemp, flax, silk, wool. The result is first and foremost an extraordinary shine. And the fabric is also hypoallergenic, antibacterial, super breathable, antistatic. Thanks to that type of nettle – in nature there are more than twenty – which grows from an altitude of 800 meters. And of which the local elders remembered characteristics and peculiarities. They were right, as confirmed in France by the University of Lorraine and the School of Agriculture and Landscape of Roville, who collaborated with Ortika to map the entire territory of Fanano and identify the best plant: «It took us months to get to know the properties of nettle and to understand how to grow it», explains Ciocci. The result of a study conducted thanks to funding from the European Union, under the Horizon 2020 programme: 50,000 euros to fine-tune the project and decide how to implement it to restore prestige to a tradition that had died out in the 1970s with the closure of the last cooperative of seamstresses, the Cimon Style. But also to create social, environmental and economic value in an area which, like many mountain villages, is at risk of depopulation.
The formula identified was in fact that of the community cooperative, conceived to restore life, services and employment to marginal areas. Today the members of Ortika – among farmers who supply the raw material, workers and lenders – do not hide their thinking big: «We have four seamstresses and we sell everything we produce – continues Ciocci -. For now, we market our products in an atelier adjacent to the laboratory, or online or at the events we participate in. But we have a development plan which provides for the opening of some shops. First in Bologna, then in the medium term also in Milan and Verona».
With black nettle they also produce herbal teas, infusions, serums and ointments. From September they will be launching a complete cosmetic line, which includes creams and lotions for the face and body and hair products. Until recently, most of the lands that extend around Fanano were the first link in the Parmigiano Reggiano supply chain: here we mainly obtain the fodder intended to feed the dairy cows. Now a diversification has begun. We are in the first steps, but Ortika already has three hectares for the cultivation of this type of nettle, between Fanano and Montese, and is preparing to add another plot on the mountain in the province of Reggio Emilia. Objective: to reach an altitude of seven hectares.
The creative part, for the conception of the collections and the capsules, is the result of teamwork together with the seamstresses, one of whom is also a pattern maker: «Our product must be told – observes Ciocci -. It has a history of recovery behind it, to make a territory attractive by enhancing its uniqueness and particularities. Our customers? They are between 25 and 60 years old, all with a marked sensitivity for the environment».