Clara Infante

My husband and I were living in Los Angeles for many years and when we became parents, we decided to come back to Europe to raise our family. We spent a year in Barcelona and then found our dream house in the Garraf, just a short drive south of the city. The house was built to be self-sustaining, and we immediately fell in love with its design; 7-meter-tall walls with floor to ceiling windows, large wooden beams, rammed earth walls, it was incredible to look at! Two of our kids were born there and so was Copito (Copito is an experimental project in land and plant pigments mostly in the form of wax). I made a business of renting it out for photo shoots and got a lot of publicity for my own work because of it. But after 4 years of living in this very extravagant house, we decided to sell it. We aren’t the same people we were when we bought it, it was like owning a very expensive, very beautiful work of art which we needed to maintain very carefully and it was very impractical considering we have three very small children.

I began to work with natural pigments 4 years ago while I was in the throes of new motherhood. I was giving myself fully to my children and so desperate to have something that was mine, I started participating in workshops and learning how to dye fabric with plant pigments… it felt like sorcery! Just pure magic, being able to extract color from onion skins and transfer it over to a piece of fabric, I was mesmerized by the process. One day, I decided to try and make crayons for my kids using the pigments I had, I recorded and posted the entire process to my stories on Instagram and saw a reaction from my followers which made it clear I had something that was worth pursuing. Eventually I began to work with earth pigments and to expand on my product line with candles and watercolors.

I source my beeswax from a European co-op of ethical bee keepers. I have read about some beeswax farming techniques that seemed really inhumane so my main priority with our wax is that it is harvested in a way that doesn’t harm bees. I purchase around 65% of the pigments we use from local producers and miners. I drive to the Lubéron once a year to collect my pigments from one of the oldest families in that region who have reserves of earth pigments from when it was still legal to collect it there. The remaining 35% of the pigments I source myself: I grow indigo in my garden, collect earth from the vines near my home and on roadsides when I drive to my family’s house in the Pyrenees.

Mindfulness is really at the heart of Copito. My hope is that whoever comes across my work or my Instagram or website can understand how much thought goes into each of my products, how much energy we give to every detail. I believe that it is possible to make a product which is 100% natural and can be just as beautiful as one which is made with paraffins or other chemicals. I choose the planet over profit, hopefully that comes across in my work.

I discovered in my work with pigments that seeing the depth of color is my superpower. I see inspiration in almost everything which has color… I can look at the sea and get lost in the different hues of slate, cobalt, sapphire and turquoise. Living in the countryside, it’s hard not to pull off the road every time I see a color that intrigues me. I also have found that living far from the city and having the limitations that motherhood has given me, the internet has served as a wonderful window into the world of what other creatives are doing. Seeing things on the internet not only sparks ideas but also keeps me motivated to work harder at creating new products.

I absolutely love and am inspired by Julie Daleyden, Adele Beaumais, and Nacho Eterno at the moment!

Sessùn to me feels like a warm breeze. Every collection is effortless, feminine and practical. More importantly, Sessùn is a brand which rests its identity on elevating small makers, doing business ethically, and still managing to succeed.