Accessory shopping in Italy
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Ibiz – Artigianato in Cuoio
In this pint-sized workshop, Elisa Nepi and her father craft exquisite, well-priced leather goods, including bags, belts and sandals, in simple but classy designs and myriad colours.
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Veneziastampa
The squeak and grind of the old Heidelberg press in action is a thrilling throwback to another time, when postcards were gorgeously lithographed, custom bookplates gently reminded book borrowers of their rightful owners and Casanovas invited dates upstairs to ‘look at my etchings’. Pick up original hand-stamped stationery with your choice of potent, yet ambiguous, symbols – a muscled arm, a leaking faucet, an ostrich plume – or invitation cards and posters with spry commedia dell’arte figures, by local artists.
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Marina e Susanna Sent
Statement jewellery has taken over Milan runways, but the iced-glass waterfall necklaces produced by pioneering sister glass artisans Marina and Susanna Sent are show-stoppers. Museum shops around Venice feature their work, including the striped glass brooches in the shape of the shield of Fortitude from the Palazzo Ducale and their signature ‘soap’ necklaces: frothy strands of big, clear glass bubbles that make the wearer look both stylish and freshly scrubbed. There’s also a branch at Ponte San Moisè.
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Il Pavone di Fabio Pelosin
Baccalà mantecato (Venice’s signature fish pâté) is bound to come out better when captured in a handmade recipe book stamped with Venetian Gothic architectural patterns. Il Pavone’s recipe books, travel logs and day planners are printed with traces of metallic pigments, but don’t just judge them by their shimmering covers. Inside they’re well organised with tabs and headings for meal planning, trip highlights and upcoming birthdays.
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Ottica Vascellari
Second-generation opticians and first-class eyewear stylists, the Vascellari family intuit eyewear needs with a glance at your prescription and a long look to assess your face shape and personal style. Angular features demand Vascellari’s signature bold architectural eyewear line with two-tone laminates, delicate features are set off with sleek satin-finish specs, and fabulous gold-rimmed sunglasses will have the crowds parting for you at the Venice Film Festival.
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Società Abbigliamento Rappresentanze Tessuti (SART)
In a gentleman’s quest for sartorial splendour, when only the finest Italian cloth will do, the address to know is SART, hidden away off the courtyard of a grand palazzo that also houses Rome’s venerable hunting club. Walk through the porter’s office and you’ll find the entrance to the right of the courtyard. There are rolls of lavish wools, linens and cottons, and you can pick up cashmere jumpers to complete your look.
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Davinia Design
Less is more at this working studio of simple, dramatic Murano brick-red glass pendants and cufflinks that look like tiny sea urchins clinging to your wrists. You’ll usually find transplanted Belgian artisan Davinia at work here fashioning clever, understated daisy stud earrings that look more elegant but cost less than flowery fantasias you’ll find around Piazza San Marco – there’s a good range from €19 to €37.
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Louis Vuitton
Forget handbags. The star turn at Rome's latest Louis Vuitton store is a show-stopping, plasma-screen staircase. Based on a concept by New York-based architect Peter Marino (and looking like it's straight off a Madonna concert set),this visual tour de force transforms itself from psychedelic snake to technicolour torrent in seconds. For the full effect, head in after hours when the stairs are free of clutter and at their hi-tech best.
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Antica Modisteria Giuliana Longo
Shoe closets are for amateurs: Giuliana’s shop is the dream hat-cupboard of any true sartorialist, with styles that range from handmade Montecristi panama hats with an extra-fine weave to a modern hot-pink felt number that looks like a doge’s cap for Peggy Guggenheim. Giuliana is here most days, polishing leather aviator hats or affixing a broad band to a bareteri, the wide-brimmed gondolier’s hat best worn with a rakish tilt.
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Fanny
Quit snickering about the name – when that Venice chill hits your extremities, you’ll be seriously glad you found this trove of local artisan-crafted leather gloves. No need to sacrifice style for warmth here: check out the cashmere-lined chocolate pair with ice-blue piping, or those polka-dotted purple numbers. At these prices, you may have to upgrade to that square cherry-red leather tote bag to haul around your glove purchases.
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Margerie
Big silver studs wind their way over the smooth, stout leather in sky-blue or blood-red handbags. Some are shaped like fish or hearts, others are cuddly soft, still more are draped in great golden ribbons. Flower motifs abound. A key note is the almost childlike happy feeling they exude and much the same can be said of the chunky necklaces (again often with big, bright flowers, or even pompoms) and stuffed felt pins with sequins.
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Monica Daniele
Ms Daniele is a hatter with a hint of madness. Hats pile up in crooked towers on the counter, behind the windows and in boxes on shelves. There's no room to swing a cat for all the hats: straw hats, floppy hats, fluffy hats, sun hats, berets and bonnets! And just to unnerve you a little, there hangs the odd example of the heavy woollen Venetian cape (that few Venetians wear anymore) known as the tabarro.
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Gualti
Either a shooting star just landed on your shoulder, or you’ve been to Gualti, where iridescent orange glass bursts from clear resin stems on an interstellar brooch. Gualti’s pleated-silk evening wraps are curled at the edges, like fans of lagoon seaweed swaying with the current. Gualti doesn’t like to repeat himself, but his prices are often less than you’d expect for one-off designs, starting at €80.
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Marco Franzato Vetrate Artistiche
Slumped, fused and foiled again: glass goes wild in this experimental co-op gallery of emerging glass designers. Mod glass clocks are the work of studio ringleader Marco Franzato, who also stocks a well-priced selection of necklaces of matt glass discs that look like UFOs orbiting around the neck, and jars of handmade Murano beads embedded with rosebuds or stars starting at €0.40 each.
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Arras
The handwoven silk wraps piled high on Arras shelves are beyond fabulous: each plush, luxurious textile represents the combined efforts of this weaving cooperative, which offers vocational workshops for people with disabilities. Hand-woven wool jackets are draped for maximum gallery-opening effect by cooperative designers, warding off the evening chill along the canals in true local style.
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Mario Pelle
Ring the bell at this unassuming doorway and hurry up flights of stairs to a family-run leather workshop that feels like it hasn’t changed for decades. The elderly artisans create belts (€70 to €100), watch straps (€40 to €90), bags, picture frames, travel cases and other such elegant stuff. You can take along a buckle or watch to which you want a belt or strap fitted.
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Furla
Sleek, durable leather and sleek, durable designs make Furla handbag fetishes easy to rationalise - especially with prices starting under €100. Recent objects of desire include large ultracontemporary chocolate or vanilla totes with round buckle closures for around €190, and a timeless silver clutch with embossed Islamic star pattern for €85.
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Antonia Accessori
New-breed buyer Antonia Giancinti’s eponymous boutique mixes locals like Bottega Veneta with international labels like Lam, Lavin, Biba and McCartney in an urban, monochrome space that echoes her Carrie Bradshaw-ish aesthetic. Antonia Accessori displays the same brash zeitgeistiness. Trust her, she’s a self-proclaimed shoe-victim (and she’s not talking bunions).
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Mandarina Duck
Nice try, Tumi and Samsonite: Mandarina Duck still does the streamlined look best, in space-age fabrics, offbeat colours, and striking shapes with rounded edges. Instead of perching atop pedestals, these bags are displayed slung across furniture, just like back home - only there's probably no scrounging for change in these designer sofas.
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Sermoneta
Buying leather gloves in Rome is a rite of passage for some, and this is the shop to do it. At Rome’s most famous glove-seller, choose from a kaleidoscopic range of quality leather and suede gloves with linings in silk and cashmere. An expert assistant will size up your hand in a glance. Just don’t expect them to smile.
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La Cravatta su Misura
With ties draped over the wooden furniture, this inviting shop resembles the study of an absent-minded professor. But don’t be fooled: these guys know their ties. Only the finest Italian silks and English wools are used in neckwear made to customers’ specifications. At a push, a tie can be ready in a few hours.
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La Coppola Storta Hats
No one actually wears these flat caps (think Robert de Niro in the flashback bits of The Godfather) in Sicily anymore, but damn are they cool, and here you can get them in every imaginable colour and variety. You can even get them for your dog. There's another branch at Via del Piè di Marmo 4 (06 679 58 01).
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Fabriano
Stationery-tragics won’t be the only ones going quietly ga-ga over Fabriano’s goods. Everything from plain notebooks to linen pencil cases to kooky leather keyrings are exquisitely crafted. An everpresent sense of wit makes all the good taste even more attractive. Staff are delightful and wrap gifts with trademark flair.
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Borsolino
The iconic Alessandrian milliner has worked with the greats (Achille Castiglioni once designed a pudding bowl bowler) and it still has room for whimsy as the feathery numbers attest. This little shop at the Galleria’s Piazza Marino entrance is good for practical pitstops as well as nostalgic browsing and fantasy try ons.
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Piumelli
Leather gloves come in a huge range of styles, every colour of the rainbow and a choice of luxury linings (silk, cashmere, lapin). For those with either delicate digits or mighty man-hands, they have a full range of sizes and friendly staff to advise on fit. Look out for the sales baskets when not just after basic black.
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