Paul Klee Inspiration and Why Piacere?

Piacere — A Movement of Light, Color, and Frequency

Piacere didn’t start as a business idea.
It started as a conversation with myself during a my first trip to Italy post Pandemic — a reminder to finally meet the person I was becoming.
“Nice to meet yourself, motherf*cker.”
Raw. Honest. Necessary.
A shift from shadow into light.

Around that same time, I kept falling into the work of Paul Klee — not knowing why, just knowing I couldn’t look away.
The geometry, the rhythm, the colors breathing like music.
Then I learned what he was facing: exile, illness, scleroderma, the weight of being labeled degenerate by fascists, and the slow collapse of his own body.
And yet… he kept creating.
He turned pain into pattern, resistance into color, and silence into motion.

And here’s the twist that surprised me:
His older sister Mathilde, the last keeper of the Klee family story, was born on January 28th.
My birthday, too.
A small detail — but it felt like a thread being pulled.
A reminder that creation, legacy, and survival often live in the quiet spaces between people who never meet.

Piacere carries that same spirit.
It’s not just a beverage company.
It’s a movement — built on art, frequency, ritual, resilience, and pleasure.
A place where nourishment meets rhythm.
Where elixirs, teas, and alcohol-removed wines sit alongside graffiti, dance, hip-hop, Klee color theory, and the underground culture that raised me.

Piacere is for anyone who’s rebuilding.
For anyone stepping out of the dark.
For anyone who remembers that taste, sound, and movement can be medicine.
For my son, Luca — the light source behind LUMA and the future of Soul Tech.
For my brother Mark — whose spirit will ride with the Ragga truck in Phase Two.
For the friends who held me down.
And for the version of myself that refused to quit.

This is pleasure with purpose.
This is ritual with rhythm.
This is Piacere.
With pleasure — always.
#drinkpiacere

— Alex

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Dedication

To my mom, Andrea Casella —
for never giving up on me, never shutting the door,
and believing in me even in the moments I couldn’t believe in myself.
Your strength carried this farther than you know.

To my dad, John Francis Casella,
whose quiet work ethic and deeper compass live in everything I build.

To my brothers (Mark and Nick Casella) and sisters (Claudette, Danielle, Lisa and Olivia)—
every one of you — the real tribe.
And especially the Inferno… La Cucina,
the chaos, the love, the noise, the meals,
the heat that forged all of us.

This movement is yours too.