The Project
Small Village Sicily exists to help keep Sicily’s small villages visible —
through storytelling, apparel, and connection.
Across Sicily, hundreds of small communities continue to preserve traditions, dialects, landscapes, and ways of life that have endured for generations. They form the cultural fabric of the island. And yet many of them remain largely unknown beyond their immediate regions — even to the descendants of the people who once called them home.
Before a village loses its population, it can lose its visibility.
That’s the gap this project was built to address.
Small Village Sicily is part apparel brand, part storytelling platform, part living archive — all in service of a single idea: that places survive through recognition. Through the names we continue to speak. Through the stories we continue to tell. Through the people who choose to carry a place with them.
How it started.
With a decision. To choose a place. To follow it.
Julie and Chris—newly married, in the middle of rethinking what the next chapter of their lives should look like—chose Motta d’Affermo before ever setting foot there.
The plan was simple, if uncertain:
go to Sicily,
experience the village in person,
and if it felt the way they hoped it would,
find a home there.
It was their first time on the island.
And it did.
What drew them was more than just Sicily, something more specific: a slower rhythm. A place where life moves differently, where identity is tied to a village, and where time feels like something you choose how to spend.
That shift didn’t happen in a vacuum.
A series of personal events had recently changed how they thought about the future—about time, priorities, and what it means to build a life with intention. From their home in South Philadelphia, alongside their two dogs, Chuckie and Lina, they began preparing for something that isn’t guaranteed: a move to Sicily, a path toward citizenship, and a different way of living.
They’ve chosen to figure that out in the open, through their Shifting 2 Sicily YouTube channel.
Small Village Sicily grew out of that same decision.
A standing commitment
Awareness should eventually become action.
Each year, a portion of Small Village Sicily’s proceeds will go directly back to the villages we represent — that part isn’t in question.
What we’re still working out is where. This summer, we’re meeting with local leaders and community organizations in Sicily to find the right place for that support to land — somewhere it can do real, lasting good rather than disappear into a general fund.
We’re hoping to share exactly where the donation is going when the full Villages Collection launches in August.
This commitment is the very heart of
Small Village Sicily.
It started with something small.
A simple bumper sticker—Md’A—created as a way to hold on to their connection to Motta, to share it with their fellow Mottesi, and others who felt the same pull.
Something personal.
Something meant to last.
But the sticker did something unexpected. People asked questions.
Where is that?
What does it mean?
How do you pronounce it?
Each conversation became a moment of visibility for a place most people had never heard of. And that raised a larger question: what would happen if more villages had the chance to be seen?
Sicily is full of places like Motta—villages that are small enough to feel known, each with its own history, culture, and sense of identity.
Places like:
Sperlinga
Burgio
Assoro
Savoca
They don’t need to be rediscovered.
They just deserve to be remembered.
Small Village Sicily exists to make that possible.
We create space for these villages to travel—to be worn, carried, and shared by people who have a connection to them, whether through heritage, memory, or something harder to explain.
Each piece is simple by design.
But it carries something with it.
The village is not part of the design.
The village is the design.
As the project grows, our goal is for Small Village Sicily to become both a collection and a record—a living archive of Sicily’s villages, where stories, traditions, and places can continue to be discovered long after they might otherwise fade from view.
Village profiles. Photography. Oral histories. Festivals and craftspeople and the quiet routines of daily life. The kind of details that rarely make it into travel guides, but are often what people remember most.
Motta d’Affermo, the Founding Village.
Motta is where this project began. It’s also the first expression of the model we hope to bring to other communities — through storytelling, apparel, photography, documentation, and connection.
The intention has never been to place one village above another. Motta simply showed us what becomes possible when a community is given space to be seen. As the project grows, more villages will be added — each with its own history, identity, and perspective. Each adding another chapter to the story.
For some, that connection is lived in person — a home, a community, a life chosen on purpose. For others, it begins with a name passed down: a grandparent’s village, a surname, a story half-remembered. Both are doorways into the same place.
Small Village Sicily is still unfolding.
So is the life behind it—one that includes a home in Motta d’Affermo, a path toward citizenship, and the intention to make Sicily not just a place to visit, but a place to live.
There are no guarantees that any of it will work exactly as planned.
But the direction is clear.
Each piece in the collection carries the name of a village — because names are how places survive.
Before a village disappears from a map, it usually disappears from conversation first. Wearing its name keeps it in both.
If you choose to be part of it, you’re not just wearing something connected to Sicily.
You’re helping carry a village forward.
And that matters.
Ready to carry a village forward?