Bassetti

Bassetti was an historic firm dealing in linens. It was established in Milan in 1830 by Carlo Baronicini with the opening of a shop for cloth and blankets and would become the foremost Italian company dealing in linens for the home. During the 1840s it became associated with a hand-weaving mill in Rescaldina, a small rural center near Legnano. In 1864 Giovanni Bassetti joined the company and, 20 years later, after taking control of the firm, he began an intense program of travel aimed at expanding the business. One day, crossing the Straits of Messina by boat, he was shipwrecked. Although he was rescued, the cold temperatures gave him fatal pneumonia. His wife Rosa became head of the company and an early example of the female entrepreneur. After a change in company name to Società Giovanni Bassetti, the three heirs, Ermete, Felice and Giovanni, purchased a finishing mill in Trezzo sull’Adda. The boom years of the 1960s saw Bassetti expand in the European market, especially in France, Spain, Germany and England. In 1964 a new continuous process plant was opened in Rescaldina, with production according to a precise coordination of the various sectors, which for the first time were connected to each other. It was the début of the Piumone, Brio, and Teso lines, and of the new sheets with releasable bed corners, the Perfetto line. In the first half of the 1990s, Bassetti took over the French company Jalla, a producer of terry cloth, and also Descamps, which had some 140 points-of-sale in Europe. In early December 2001, the brand was absorbed by the Zucchi Group, who already owned 85% of it.