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THE BRAND

Bastet is a majestic name as well as the Egyptian goddess that evokes and represents: Bast. 

In the vast and multiform Egyptian pantheon Bastet is one of the most important and venerated deities of Ancient Egypt, the goddess represented as a woman with a cat’s head or as a black cat.

Bastet embodies what is most intimate and feminine within us and at times waits only to emerge: sensuality and sweetness, charm and generosity, love and passion, desire and pleasure, the life that shines in all its fullness.

Bastet is a collection of collectibles: unique pieces, refined but with a strong character, created from precious fabrics but still in a sustainable way.

The collection wants to have a hedonistic point of view, for a woman who wants to feel and be powerful, independent, daring, refined, sensual and confident in every occasion. Bastet is not just a style, but a way of being!

BAST IN ANCIENT EGYPT

Daughter of the sun god Ra, created along with her evil twin goddess Sekhmet. From the 2nd Bastet dynasty it was represented as a wild cat or as a lioness; only from 1000 p.e.c. it had the shape of a domestic cat, and in the Greek era it became even more common the representation as a woman with the head of a cat.

The cat was a sacred animal throughout ancient Egypt and temples, poems and invocations were dedicated to it, while the mortal remains were mummified, placing next to the mummies of the mice to have food for eternity. He was honored because he protected the barns from mice and therefore the people from famine, but however domesticated, he was not an animal accustomed to man as today.

The day dedicated to the goddess Bastet, the feast day where joy reached ecstasy, was October 31. They drank and danced to excess, and the children could not participate. Barges full of women, flowers and wine were floating on the Nile. It is said that they were sensual rituals, full of music and dances.

Bastet was born as a solar deity, personifying the beneficial heat of the sun. It is in fact indicated as the daughter of Ra, as well as one of her "eyes", that is, that she was sent to annihilate the enemies of Egypt and its gods. She is a goddess with a double aspect, peaceful and terrible: in her form of cat or woman cat she is the benevolent goddess, protector of humanity, goddess of joy and of women in labor; in her ferocious appearance she is known for her wrath, represented with a lion’s head, and identified with Sekhmet, the Mighty, goddess of war (as well as medicine). Like all felines, it is attractive and dangerous together, sweet and cruel: it is the symbol of femininity, the protector of the hearth and of the motherhood, but it is also ready to fight daily with the Apophis serpent, the one who contrasts the race of the solar boat and the benign forces of creation.

His attribute was the sistrum, a musical instrument created by Isis, and also held by Hathor; one of the names of the cat goddess was "Lady of the Bandages".

A legend says that Ra, offended by humanity, sent Hathor to punish and exterminate her; the goddess, once assumed the form of Sekhmet, began the massacre; later Ra, moved to more gentle advice also by the other gods, tried to recall the furious goddess: For this purpose he had beer mixed with red ochre for a blood-like liquid, and poured it on the ground. Sekhmet saw him and drank him, and drunk he fell asleep, calming down. After the wrath the goddess assumed the form of Bastet; another variant of the myth states that Bastet bathed in the Nile and later returned to Bubastis: it seems the devout Egyptians retraced this journey in honor of the goddess and as a veneration for cats.

Bastet seduces and enchants, in her there are the masculine solar and the feminine lunar, the luminous force at all evident and the independent and mysterious power, secret, feminine, lunar. Bastet was the Lady of love, joy, pleasure, dance and song and under her protection were placed the animals sacred to her, the cats, but also those who embodied these aspects of independence and mysterious charm, fragility and beauty, So children and women.

 

"There are some things in nature in which beauty and usefulness, such as artistic and technical perfection, combine in an almost incomprehensible way: the spider’s web, the wing of the dragonfly, the wonderfully slender body of the dolphin, and the movements of the cat"

(Konrad Lorenz)