Accessory shopping in Venice
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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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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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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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Arte Vetro Murano
Shatter glass conventions with new styles by emerging Murano glass designers. Davide Penso makes a necklace of flat puddles of orange glass that have a molten-lava look about them, and Artematte’s mismatched yet complementary lampwork glass earrings will earn you double-takes at Biennale art openings.
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Mondonovo Maschere
One of Venice's master mask-makers, Guerrino Lovato, runs this higgledy-piggledy store, producing fine facial disguises for all and sundry, including, as he is not too bashful to point out, some of the models used by the late Stanley Kubrick for his last movie, Eyes Wide Shut.
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Ottica Carraro
Lost your sunglasses on the Lido? Never fear: Ottica Carraro can make you a custom pair within 24 hours. The store has its own signature ‘Venice’ line, which ranges from retro-1980s shades with caution-yellow rims to arty matt-rubber frames in bronze and grape.
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Il Grifone
A virtually décor-free shopfront disguises this one-man leather workshop where you can get to grips with quality handmade bags, belts, wallets and other leather objects for quite reasonable prices.
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Bevilacqua (workshop)
TV dens become grand salons with Venetian swagger at Bevilacqua, producers of Venetian brocades, damasks, and silken tassels since 1800. Fabrics are woven in time-honoured fashion at its workshop.
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Mazzon Le Borse
A modest workshop with none of the frippery of fashion lairs, Mazzon le Borse is frequented by canny Venetian women on the lookout for top-class, handmade leather bags and accessories.
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Shary
In one window dangles a row of generous, wide ties in demanding primal and pastel colours, while in the other you'll find slinky scarves in the same kaleidoscopic array of colours.
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Ca' del Sole
Although much of what is on sale here is aimed at the theatre business, anyone can purchase a fantasy in this House of the Sun. The masks are of a high standard.
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