Category: Nuova CEV

There are 8 posts published under Nuova CEV.

Transparent green double-glazed crystal (double verre) – Nuova CEV

Thirty years have passed but I can still vividly remember as though it were today, the time we decided to take “something exaggerated, and astonishing….” to the MACEF show in Milan.

Our master glassmakers together with the master engravers studied and designed a column and an amphora in transparent green double-glazed crystal (double verre). In that era this was something totally new and never seen before, so what in our minds was really intended to be a visiting card, gradually turned into our core business.

amphora-in-transparent-green-double-glazed-crystal-double-verre-nuova-cev

column-in-transparent-green-double-glazed-crystal-double-verre-nuova-cev

Obviously since then we have been shamelessly copied by our competitors who are always waiting on the sidelines for our new creations which they immediately propose as their own. While on one hand this unfair behaviour is totally annoying, on the other it means two things:
1) that we are always one step ahead of the others, and
2) only those who are successful are copied

Discover more about Nuova CEV

5583

Hands – Nuova CEV

I have been told to explain in detail that our products are handcrafted, meaning that they are created by hand, one by one, and engraved by hand, one by one, etc. etc.

 nuova cev vetraio master engravers
I have been asked to highlight the skills of our master glassmakers who have been carrying on this work since they were children and now have white hair and a few aches and pains.

nuova cev incisore

I have been told that this “article” must make it clear that all the decorations on the crystal are created by hand with great passion and dedication by our master engravers.

Too bad all this won’t fit into a space of 850 characters; it’s a bit like trying to fit an elephant into a sandwich. It obviously won’t go, so you must settle for the heading, or if you are especially inquisitive, come and see how we make things with our hands… here at Nuova CEV!

nuova-cev-molatore

Discover more about Nuova CEV

4396

A pretty good Football Team – Nuova CEV

The people who work in a glass factory are prevalently all males and therefore the atmosphere is usually goliardic and filled with camaraderie: joking, teasing, poking fun and the assigning of extravagant nicknames is normal behaviour every day.

It is well-known that glassmakers have big appetites because they have to get up at four in the morning to carry out a decidedly physically strenuous activity, and so their breakfast usually consists of large French sticks filled with everything imaginable and all washed down with quite a few glasses of …

But apart from the numerous dinners and friendships also outside work, the one thing that creates harmony is an exciting game of football, and with so many stalwart young men available we have decided to put together a pretty good football team.

nuova cev football soccer team calcio squadra

Third time and a delicious cake, irrespective of whether winners or losers….. is in any case a MUST !

nuova cev torta

Nuova CEV italia 90 crystal

Discover more about Nuova CEV

4760

Realising other people’s desires – Nuova CEV

Our motto is realising other people’s desires.nuova cev

One day we received a visit from a very important man from the Middle East: I can’t remember his exact title, if he was an emir, a sultan, or something similar. Nonetheless, he was accompanied by a multitude of servants and wives, as is common among rich people from that part of the world.

nuova cev
He chose to purchase many magnificent things from us, to adorn his splendid palace. However, there was still one object which was needed to complete the decoration of the bathroom. When we explained that we could make the item but would need to produce a certain quantity for the manufacturing process to be economically viable, our wealthy visitor replied: “This is not a problem… if we multiply the number of bathrooms which each of my wives has at her disposal (at least two), by the number of palaces which I own, we can easily reach that number…”

portafazzoletti cromato nuova cev
And that is how our “tissue box” (made from crystal, obviously) was born.

Discover more about Nuova CEV

5046

A strong Crystal Company – Nuova CEV

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Let’s talk about Nuova CEV. How did it all started?
Our fortune usually derives from the fact that someone breaks something; everyone knows that crystal is very fragile and therefore… we are called on to reproduce it. In this case our history started after someone destroyed much more than crystal, when the whole of Italy had to be rebuilt and everyone had to roll up their sleeves and start from scratch… that is, after the Second World War. That’s how the CEV – Cooperativa Empolese Vetrai (cooperative glassmakers from Empoli) was born, a company that now has over three hundred employees. Up until the 1980s it produced glass in its various forms before passing the baton over to the Nuova CEV that sprang up in 1985.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

What’s the difference between CEV and Nuova CEV (nuova = new in italian)?
Nuova CEV was born with a new “old” idea: instead of turning to industrialization, to the first successfully experimented robots, or to serial and mass production, we decided to exploit the skills of our master glassmakers and engravers. Today we no longer concentrate on glass but instead, on crystal, devoting our work to small numbers in the pursuit of the highest quality of the items produced. In retrospect, this choice is what saved us – while twenty or so other manufacturing companies, all much larger and better structured than ours were forced to close after making the opposite decision.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

That choice was not easy to understand some years ago. A curiosity: you are always speaking as “we”…
It’s true, I always use the term “we”, not as the royal plural, but because I am not the big boss…in a “healthy” cooperative there is no big boss and nobody who feels that way. I am just the chairman and have been for a long time.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

How long have you been working here?
I began in 1990, before I turned thirty, I was appointed chairman by the other shareholders even though I was the youngest member; in a cooperative, elections are usually held every three years to renew the Board of Directors and therefore the chairman as well…and also in this case…. I have survived. And to think that I entered the Nuova CEV for the purpose of opening a data processing centre in the company. Instead I found myself doing a new job, rather, a thousand new jobs: in addition to being a glassmaker and glass grinder I have done everything. I consider myself a “spin doctor” and the “historical memory” of the company as by now all the founding members have since retired.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

What’s different in a cooperative company?
A cooperative is a strange undertaking, very different from a private company, as in fact, it works like a small republic and its representatives, who are elected by the “people”, are called upon to give life to those executive figures that actually plot the company’s future. It is similar to an enlarged family, with lots of children who grow up and as they grow they probably “drive their parents a little crazy”, with perhaps a prodigal son here and there, and also a son of a….in short, a real family. And as with all families, at least once a year there’s a great party to celebrate the fact of all being together.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Tell us something more about that party?
In the past, what seems like eons ago, we used to hold mega parties in beautiful villas with sumptuous dinners, animation for the children and entertainment for the adults, with numerous official guests and all the family members of each shareholder. Now that the crisis is upon us, just like good parents we have sized everything down, even though we never miss out on the pleasure of spending time together in front of a dish of delicious Tuscan food with a glass of good Chianti in our hands to share a few desecrating jokes true as all true Tuscans do – well, to tell the truth there are a couple of foreigners among us but they have already been converted…

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Aside the party, how is the job?
I love my job as it takes me in contact with workers all over the world, and in line with my travelling spirit, I like to have personal experience with the habits and customs of our customers in the most exotic and most far away countries. At times we have had to supply decorations designed especially for the wedding of an Arab princess, or a Sultan, and just the fact of producing personalised bonbonniere (fancy sweet-box) for these events gives our company an important breath of oxygen. We indirectly come in contact with famous brand names and high-profile personalities, whose names we cannot mention as we work for them, making perfume bottles, home furnishings, and lamps etc., and because we produce cups and trophies that we then see on TV in the hands of the winners of the Gran Prix, world cup skiing, tennis, golf, football and many other sporting championships.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

So you are related in some way also to sports…
Personally, as a historical fan of Empoli Calcio, I am honored that the Nuova CEV has produced the various trophies assigned to footballers who have since become famous, such as Montella, Di Natale, and Giovinco, to name some of the most recent. And once, on occasion of a meeting between Pope Wojtyla and Bill Clinton in world vision, my mind boggled when I suddenly noticed a splendid lamp from our own production sitting on the table between them.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Which are the plans for the future?
What is the future of our company?
Whatever will be written down by those who will come after us.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Andrea Falaschi
President, Nuova CEV 

Discover more about Nuova CEV

5722

Three stories about Crystal – Nuova CEV

What’s more common than a football, the ball of a sport that we could call “global”? That’s why in 1990 we made a series of gadgets for the World Cup Italia 90 bearing the legendary tricolour “Ciao”.

Nuova CEV italia 90 crystal

Trick or treat? Trick! That’s why a playful glassmaker started to make small stones as a way of adding life to breakfast time, the famous “Fresca” (a moment of refreshment)! And a prestigious designer has made a series of chandeliers and lamps out of them.

nuova cev crystal

Television, such a passion! During an interview on Telemontecarlo I took a gift to the anchorwoman, a crystal ring, and from that time on I have been coerced into replicating and multiplying these gifts for various actresses.

nuova cev crystal

Discover more about Nuova CEV

2903

Inspirations – Nuova CEV

“My greatest passion is to travel, discover, understand, meet, experience… the world. I have explored all the continents and have been particularly fascinated by Salar de Uyuni, a huge “dazzling” expanse of salt.

 

Salar de Uyuni

 

Salar de Uyuni

 

 

I experienced the same emotions when I stayed in the majestic Ice Hotel in Lapland. When I faced with the inimitable transparency of water I imagined and dreamed of creating something equally as splendid by obtaining it directly from blocks of ice… and magically everything turned into crystal with the same powerful brilliance.

 

Ice Hotel

 

Ice Hotel

 

For the first time in my life, I was in a hurry to get back home in order not to forget all those places and all those images that my eyes had captured so that I could try to recreate them… in crystal.”

 

Andrea Falashi – Nuova CEV.

Discover more about Nuova CEV

2743

Tuscany Handycraft Experience – our future together

From La Casa del Terzo Millennio project, the efforts of 12 brave companies and CNA Prato comes Tuscany Handicraft Experience:
a new and modern concept of products and handicraft.
A storehouse of ideas, comments, contributions and discussions, able to stimulate creativity and innovation capacity.

“Craftsmanship is innovation in progress.
Elegance is a virtue.
Every object has a past, and tells about a person, a tradition.
Build your future on our past.
From our hands, beauty in your homes.
We never changed our attention to quality, we changed the language we use to communicate.
The benefits to technology with the soundness of experience.
Our creativity, our success.
A new and innovative way of exporting our art around the world.
Our hands recount the beauty of our land.
Tuscany, our single source of inspiration.
Our future together.”

The beauty of our creations is designed based on our values, realized with our very own hands and exported thanks to our tenacity. Art, culture and architecture of our tradition guide us. This is our Tuscany. This is our mission.

2566