Design in Relief: Tactile Thinking with Chiarastella Cattana
Since founding her studio in Venice in 2002, Chiarastella Cattana has woven a world in which Italian textile heritage and contemporary design sensibility meet on equal terms. Her practice is informed by years in Milan, where she developed yarns and artefacts for the fashion industry. But it is in Venice, working on her own terms, that she’s truly distilled her philosophy: to put technique and intelligence in service of beauty.
The Chiarastella Cattana yarn-dyed "Riga Gea" woven sateen stripe. Crafted from 100% linen. Photo by @sofiazevi
Her fabrics speak the language of construction before they speak of decoration. Every textile - whether jacquard, canvas, or yarn-dyed weave - is the result of deep material understanding. Her studio explores structure as much as surface, form as much as feel. Tubular yarn techniques lend dimensionality to flat forms. Patterns are guided by modernist restraint but rooted in centuries-old methods. It is slow design - rigorous, elegant, and unafraid.
Chiarastella Cattana 'Riga Gemma' tablecloth, 100% yarn-dyed linen. AIRO treatment. Woven in Italy with a refined jaquard technique.
The result is textiles that seem to hold their own time. Materials are chosen with an architect’s eye and a poet’s ear: linen, cotton, merino wool, cashmere, silk. These are fibres that mark both origin and intention. Her supply chain - certified by Masters of Linen™ - is fully traceable across Europe, grown without artificial irrigation or GMOs, and spun, woven, and dyed with environmental sensitivity. Sustainability here is not a badge; it’s a foundational grammar.
Chiarastella Cattana cashmere blanket. Photo credit: Blaine Davis (NT Times)
Cattana’s curatorial approach extends beyond the cloth. Her Venetian studio, an “island within an island,” is part workshop, part concept store. It’s a place where conversations begin with textiles and end in broader explorations of design, ritual, and community. She brings together garments, objects, and stories in a manner reminiscent of a Renaissance bottega - spaces where learning and making went hand in hand.
'Lens' woven rug. Chiarastella Cattana in collaboration with Sardinian weaver, Caterina Frongia. 80% wool 20% cotton. Handwoven in Italy.
The studio also partners with artisan workshops across Italy, preserving skills and creative relationships. Her hand-embroidered pieces honour the time-intensive processes of generations-old communities. Her rug collection, developed with Fondazione Le Costantine in Salento, supports women’s employment through traditional weaving - a social impact initiative as tactful as it is tactile.
Cattana’s intelligence as a designer lies in her ability to sense the unseen: to notice how a weave catches light, how a textile defines space, how cloth becomes character. This is design that rewards attention. Every object carries a memory of its making, every fibre a record of decision and care.
This issue, in the Issue 125 Mediterranean prize draw, Selvedge readers are offered a rare opportunity to bring a piece of her work into their own space. Enter here for the chance to be the lucky winner of a handwoven Chiarastella Cattana blanket.
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Further Information:
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Image Credits:
LEAD: Licia napkin by Chiarastella Cattana. Image: Giada Paoloni
All other images as credited in photo captions.