Until the post-war years, Sassuolo was a small town at the foot of the Apennines, its salubrious climate reflected by the Este family's decision to build a summer palace there in the middle of a large park now almost obliterated by building development. And then came the ceramic tile boom, bringing with it the new Sassuolo of tens of factories. The explosion in tile production started with the realisation that ceramic tiles do not necessarily have to be white and their use does not have to be restricted to the bathroom. Sassuolo's new companies offered the market tiles of thousands of different colours, shapes and sizes for interior design at all levels. Growth was so rapid that in 1991 the annual output of the ceramics district straddling the provinces of Modena and Reggio Emilia was over 312 million square metres of tiles. If Italy is the world's largest producer and exporter of ceramic tiles, Sassuolo is Italy's main production centre (in 1991, 14,000 people were employed in the province of Modena's production factories). Output is becoming increasingly specialised to the point of personalisation, with some firms calling on the services of leading fashion creators to design their products.

Under the slogan "Your home is a lovely woman waiting to be clothed", the most prestige names in the world of fashion transfer their style and taste to the stuff of ceramic tiles.