“It then took another year to design various different shapes and finally present them to Matches who had been waiting on this project a long time. At first, we wanted to launch this year at Salone del Mobile but then obviously everything was canceled because of COVID. Even the people in Murano stopped working because they had to shut the furnace. They finally resumed and finally, we are here and very happy with the results. I think colors are beautiful,” she says. “They are very much inspired by Positano colors.”
Carla tells me she’s still a ways away from swapping out the beautiful Moretti glasses for her own. She needs to adapt the shapes to fit the bar’s needs. It seems she’ll have the time to do so. When we speak in late October, she explains that Positano has fallen quiet once again. Coronavirus is on the rise in Italy, the second wave she had feared. Despite it all, she’s thankful. The hotel had an abbreviated but enjoyable summer and the country’s second lockdown coincides with the end of the season at Le Sirenuse.
“We’re lucky because we are going to close before November—both the stores and the hotel—but we would be closing anyway. We only had four months this year, but at least we were open. We hosted lots of people, friends, and friends of friends who were traveling Italy by car; it was safer than taking the train or a flight. We weren’t full, nobody was full, and you could find rooms in the hotels easy,” she says. “We had quite a lovely summer. It wasn’t as productive as normal, but the fact that we opened was important. We said to the world that we were alive. We allowed our staff to work. I just cannot imagine if we stayed closed, what our mood would be now, at the beginning of winter.”
Le Sirenuse’s restaurant outpost in Miami, meanwhile, didn’t fare as well. In early 2020, the Four Seasons Hotel at The Surf Club announced the closure of the restaurant. It was the only Le Sirenuse presence outside of Positano and for those who visited, it was paradisiacal. Joseph Dirand designed the space, filling the terracotta tiled room with soaring palm trees.
“Miami came about by chance through a common friend and it was an unbelievable experience because the place is beautiful and the architecture is exquisite,” says Carla. “It was as close as what we are here could possibly be in America. We left with the impression of having done something amazing.”
Her husband and two sons, Francesco and Aldo, are eager to recreate the magic somewhere else, but it’s all theoretical at this point. “My kids are young and full of energy and my husband is a volcano himself, so maybe something will come sooner rather than later,” she says. In the meantime, Carla has her sights set on her beloved Positano—and it’s not a bad view. Luke Edward Hall feels the same way. For Emperio Sirenuse, the British bon vivant designer is released a collection of tableware that features the dome top of the church of Santa Maria Assunta, as seen from the terrace of Le Sirenuse. The vista, painted on mugs and plates, is rendered in Hall’s identifiable hand. It’s a perfect collaboration. The mythological figures he’s known to sketch would have sailed right past Le Sirenuse, after all.
In the upcoming off-season, Carla will have plenty to do. She tells me she’s busy showcasing Empiro Sirenuse’s fall collection and buying for the shops, but “it’s not really the same,” she says of the move towards working from home. “I always found new little companies that sold that one thing that inspired me and all that is lost right now. How do I get to know about them? It’s complicated—we resort to research on Instagram.”
As for the year ahead, Carla, like the rest of the world, is having trouble forecasting. “I think as soon as the world will be normal, people will start traveling again. It’s been a sweet year, but it’s not sustainable. You cannot operate the hotel in a world where people cannot travel freely and come and go. So what’s going to happen next summer? I don’t know. Let’s hope a lot of good things.”
The post Carla Sersale on How a Quiet Summer at Le Sirenuse Gave Her Room to Grow appeared first on Honk Magazine.
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