She created her own brand of bags and accessories, “Camoz”, to promote sustainability in nautical science
Venice – Some people go where the wind takes them. Then there are those who, like Camilla, are able to sit still only because their passion for journeys, challenges, and far away destinations is combined with the slower and more contemplative passion for manual labor; a job that is best done when on your own, in silence, perhaps with radio music in the background or some scant, but pleasant, chatter with someone who understands the value of concentration.
—-> Camilla is one the protagonists of the movie we’d like to shoot in Venice: click here to be part of our project by supporting our crowdfunding projects and getting her bags and gadgets as rewards!
Camilla Morelli has been living in Venice for several years but she originally comes from the mountains of Valtellina. It is there, in the woods and in the snow, that she grew up and learned, like most of her peers, how to ski. Yet Camilla became a sailor, fond of boats, seas and adventures, as well as of cold wind and rain to be tamed with the strength of arms, body and mind.
—-> Camilla is one the protagonists of the movie we’d like to shoot in Venice: click here to be part of our project by supporting our crowdfunding projects and getting her bags and gadgets as rewards!
She is not a fiercely competitive boat racer, she doesn’t live the sea as a competition but rather as a place to go and find inner peace.
Love at first sight
When she first set foot on a boat as a young girl she quickly realized that sooner or later she would “betray” the mountains for the sea. And now that she spends her days among scissors and sewing machines in a warehouse in the San Polo district of Venice, it’s nice to hear her story. “I learned to sail in the region of Liguria, attending sailing courses and participating in a few races.” “The world of the sea became an integral part of my being.”
—-> Camilla is one the protagonists of the movie we’d like to shoot in Venice: click here to be part of our project by supporting our crowdfunding projects and getting her bags and gadgets as rewards!
For Camilla (who just recently in 2014 took up a Canary Islands-Cape Verde-Brazil crossing), sailing isn’t just the best way to search for and find yourself, but it also implies a constant learning, bettering and improvement of all that is necessary for men at sea.
Waste as treasure
This is what her story tells us. After receiving her degree in foreign languages and literature in Venice, Camilla attended a carpenter course on the island of Certosa and found work in the “Baraonda” sail-maker’s shop in Caorle, where she cut, sewed and tailored sails for three years.
Since then, she has always been fascinated with all that ends up in the trash of the sail-maker’s shop: colorful and beautiful weather-resistant fabric scraps. Perfect for handbags, backpacks, belts, wallets, cases, key chains, breakfast place-mats and pillows. Just like the ones Camilla sews and transforms, from morning to evening, in a warehouse of the Venetian San Polo district that she shares with other four creative people such as herself.
—-> Camilla is one the protagonists of the movie we’d like to shoot in Venice: click here to be part of our project by supporting our crowdfunding projects and getting her bags and gadgets as rewards!
She does this job from autumn to spring because the summer wind calls her elsewhere, towards Italian and European coasts, places she reaches to sail and to carry tourists around on sailboats. “For now this is my way of life: during the winter I work with my hands in order to do something useful and environmentally friendly for sailing enthusiasts. In the summer I go where I’m contact with the water and with the sun“.
At the end of a work day, the floor of any sail shop is covered with shreds of fabric: Dacron, Kevlar, Mylar, laminated polyester, Spectra, Nylon. These are all strong and resistant materials that, just by looking at them, make you yearn for the sea. During her experience in the sail shop, Camilla learned to select them, pick them and put them together with pieces of used sails, abandoned and still full of salt, coming from sail-maker’s from across Europe and destined for pulping.
—-> Camilla is one the protagonists of the movie we’d like to shoot in Venice: click here to be part of our project by supporting our crowdfunding projects and getting her bags and gadgets as rewards!
From a pile of material that others would throw out without batting an eye, all kinds of accessories jump out. Many of these accessories are now well known in Venice, by the brand name of “Camoz“, and have become a must among sailors. They are distributed in nautical shops across Italy and in related libraries.
Each item has its story
“All Camoz accessories have a story to tell: whether they come from racing sailboats, from boats sailing in the Mediterranean Sea, or from sail shops overlooking the Atlantic Ocean… They now have the “taste” and the experience of the places they come from, ” Camilla says. Even her story is one to tell: that of a mountain girl who has chosen to live of and by the sea.
—-> Camilla is one the protagonists of the movie we’d like to shoot in Venice: click here to be part of our project by supporting our crowdfunding projects and getting her bags and gadgets as rewards!
“The idea of recycling came to me in 2010 in France, La Rochelle – Camilla tells us – I used to work there, in the Incidences sail-maker’s shop, and during the winter a strong storm flooded a large amount of sails with water and mud, ruining them. I saw the bins fill up with these precious materials, used for big ocean races, and I could not resist: I loaded them into my car and took them home with me. I washed them, dried them and began to sew.”
To throw away pieces of sails – the “muscles” of boats, as Saramago called them – means to ignore how much energy and how much history they still have to give. Camilla ponders on this every time she assembles them to give them new life: “To climb on board of a boat and go far away pulls us closer to the purest essence of freedom; it puts man in contact with the environment, it makes him communicate with the wind and with the unpredictability of nature,” she says.
—-> Camilla is one the protagonists of the movie we’d like to shoot in Venice: click here to be part of our project by supporting our crowdfunding projects and getting her bags and gadgets as rewards!
But waste, in nautical and marine industries, is very common and the more I think about it the more I try, in my small means, to find a way to give new life to these materials. Sailing can really become a sustainable sector of our industry, but we must strive and work harder for better results. I will always do my best.
