The idea came to me one day when I was in a sports equipment store in Finalborgo, an area which is very popular with climbers. I had accompanied a friend to buy sports equipment and while I was waiting for him, my eye fell on a wall of colored ropes. I selected two that I liked and they fit well together, one orange and the other one purple with stripes, I bought a meter of both and, holding several rounds together with a small elastic, I wore them for weeks like necklaces. Then talking about these strings with Elena Augelli, a friend who has been creating jewelery for some time, we thought of developing the idea together. We started experimenting with different types of hooks until we found the right ones. Then the name was born, you could read it in various ways as number 1001 or the word lool, where the two “O”s of the logo were inspired by the double loop of the rope. We studied the packaging and business cards, which also became the decoration of the packages; then, we opened a Facebook page and organized some events among friends to show the products. The necklaces were very popular and we even sold them abroad! At one point we tried to make a qualitative leap and organized a meeting with a historical company producing strings in Novara, I was thrilled to see the strings produced with these ancient English machines, a beautiful place! With them we talked about designing our own rope. The idea of using climbing rope patterns was nice, it’s an industry that often anticipates fashion even for what concerns clothing. Due to the size we had reached, we had run out of motivation and drive to move forward, we had explored the explorable: either we made the leap in quality or we stopped. I did not want to invest so much energy at that moment, I was quite busy with my regular job, I was in a very young design studio, always working on new and different projects. I couldn’t manage to investing time in another sector so far from my profession. Since I started, I was more excited to think about the project than to carry it out on a daily basis: I liked the manual part, but without the possibility of evolving the product, I was no longer interested. For me the project is closed, with Elena we split the remaining materials (now they are in a box in the basement) and we have not talked about it again, since her professional life has also taken other paths.
