THE LETTER
Dear Mom,
You didn't know my project, but today I am very proud and I know you do too, because when you asked if the baskets were still going to be sold like the old times?! I can answer you today that your "Esperança" sells baskets to the whole world with yours and dad stamp. It is also for you that today I fight for the dignity of this Art.
Love from your daughter,
Esperança Vitória,
Artisan & Victoria Handmade CEO
‘’I was born in a basket. I remember watching my mother weave, the noise of the comb hitting one of the looms we had at home while I was taking a nap.''
Hello, I'm Esperança Vitória, Granddaughter of Vitória Brites and Daughter of Toino da Vitória and Maria Manuela.
At 38 years of age, I said goodbye to the job where I worked for 14 years to work in the one I learned since I was 5 years old. To work on what everyone said was impossible to survive: the reed basketry, the art and tradition of my family since 1952.
And that was how the Victoria Handmade project was born, in memory of my dear mom who left this universe in the same year, and of mine father who saw this art extinguishing from day to day between his hands without first reaching yours:
A force that made us be reborn.
My father always told me: ''I recognize a basket from Toino da Vitória wherever I am’’. And today, I hear myself saying the same ‘’I recognize any Victoria Handmade basket, even from afar.’’
Since I was a child, my father has always been demanding the best of me and my sisters when it came to weaving baskets. Even on that time, his baskets were the best in the village. Today I am grateful for that teaching, because I can say with certainty: yes, we have the best Portuguese reed baskets.
Why? Because we live in the skin the devaluation of years that these pieces have suffered, but we have not lost the desire to value the art of weaving the reed with the boldness of adding modernity so that we could continue to weave Stories by your side.
