Shopping in Venice
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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 a supernova brooch. Pleated-silk evening wraps are curled at the edges, like lagoon seaweed swaying with the current. One-off designs start at €60.
reviewed
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VizioVirtù
Work your way through Venice’s most decadent vices and tasty virtues with repeat visits to the Willy Wonka–esque chocolatier for extra-creamy house-made gelato and chocolates filled with ganache in a five-course meal of flavours: Barolo wine, pink pepper, ginger-curry, chestnut honey and mimosa flower. A second location on Campo San Tomá offers more cakes, mousses, pralines and upscale gift-wrapped treats.
reviewed
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Mare Di Carta
Sailors, pirates and armchair seafarers should navigate their way to this canalside storefront, which stocks every maritime map and DIY boating aid needed for lagoon exploration, boat upkeep and spotting local sea life. If you’re considering rowing lessons or a sailboat excursion – and who doesn’t after a few days on the lagoon? – stop here to check out the schedule of boating classes and trips.
reviewed
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Murano Collezioni
Like divas at Teatro La Fenice, signature glass pieces show perfect poise on elegantly spotlit pedestals in this darkened brick warehouse showroom. Famed Murano glass designers Barovier & Toso, Carlo Moretti and Venini are all represented here, and even if you’re not in the market for such high-end glass you’re welcome to stop in and admire their luminous designs in a range of techniques.
reviewed
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Giovanna Zanella
Woven, sculpted and crested like lagoon birds, Zanella’s shoes practically demand that red carpets unfurl before you. The Venetian designer makes shoes custom, so the answer is always: yes, you can get those peep-toe numbers in yellow and grey, size 12, extra narrow. Closed last two weeks of August.
reviewed
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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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Libreria Internazionale Marco Polo
Hunt for anything from preloved novels in various languages to new books on variegated subjects. If you're interested in the way guidebooks used to be, this is the place to rummage for antique volumes on various locations in Italy and beyond. If it's contemporary guidebooks you want, head to the sister store, Libreria San Marco (041 522 63 43; Salizada San Lio, Castello 5469; 09:30-20:00 Mon-Sat, 11:00-19:00 Sun).
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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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Fanny
Quit snickering about the name – when that Venice chill hits your extremities, you’ll be seriously glad you found this trove of artisan-crafted leather gloves. No need to sacrifice style for warmth here: check out the cashmere-lined purple pair with yellow piping, or those polka-dotted aqua numbers. At these prices, you might spring for a sleek chocolate bowling-ball bag to haul around your glove purchases.
reviewed
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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. Styles range from hand-woven Montecristi panama hats – as modelled by client Sean Connery – to a fuchsia 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, wide-brimmed gondolier’s hats best worn with a rakish tilt (from €45).
reviewed
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Gmeiner
London, Paris, Tokyo: Gabriele Gmeiner honed her shoemaking craft in sartorial centres around the globe, and jet-setters now seek out her hidden Venice workshop for ultrasleek Oxfords with hidden ‘bent’ seams and brogues minutely detailed with hand-stitching, all made to measure for men and women. If Gabriele’s not stitching on-site, she’s probably at the women’s prison on Giudecca, where she leads a job-training program in shoe design.
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Madera
Double-takes are a given at this modern design showcase, where porcelain birdhouses are covered with fish scales, wooden cutting boards are shaped like Venetian islands, and teapots in foam-rubber tea cosies seem ready to scuba-dive. These original design objects are by owner-designer Francesca Meratti and other Italian designers (with Scandinavian and Japanese influences) in a well-curated collection starting at €15.
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Daniela Ghezzo
A gold chain is pulled across the doorway, but not because Daniela is out: she’s chatting with a customer about shoe preferences while taking foot measurements. In this historic atelier, maestra Ghezzo continues the tradition of custom-making every pair to measure, so you’ll never see your oxblood ankle boots on another art collector, or your charcoal-grey wingtips on a rival titan of industry.
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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.
reviewed
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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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Drogheria Mascari
Ziggurats of cayenne, leaning towers of star anise and chorus lines of spotlit olive oils attract crowds of awestruck foodies to Drogheria Mascara’s windows. Indoors, customers clutch tiny jars of white truffles like holy relics, and staff help dazed first-timers navigate the selection of Sicilian capers and 50 kinds of aromatic honeys. For memorable small-production Italian wines at €10 to €30 – including Veneto cult winemakers like Quintarelli – don’t miss the backroom enoteca (wine bar).
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Cantina del Canton
Wine is as important to life for Venetians as water and a fine take-home tradition persists in Venice for tipplers unable or unwilling to spend on big labels. These wine-stores are crammed with huge glass damigiane (demijohns). From these monsters, each containing a sea of modest Veneto table wine, you make a choice and have it poured into whatever you bring - used wine or mineral-water bottles, it's up to you. You will be charged, on average, around €2 per litre.
reviewed
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Al Canton del Vin
Wine is as important to life for Venetians as water and a fine take-home tradition persists in Venice for tipplers unable or unwilling to spend on big labels. These wine-stores are crammed with huge glass damigiane (demijohns). From these monsters, each containing a sea of modest Veneto table wine, you make a choice and have it poured into whatever you bring - used wine or mineral-water bottles, it's up to you. You will be charged, on average, around €2 per litre.
reviewed
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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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Cartè
Lagoon ripples mysteriously appear on marbled-paper necklaces and hand-bound portfolios thanks to the steady hands and restless imagination of carta marmorizzata (marbled paper) maestra Rosanna Corrò. After years restoring ancient Venetian manuscripts and books, Rosanna began creating original, bookish beauties: aquatic marbled-paper cocktail rings, hypnotically swirled statement necklaces, op-art jewellery boxes and surreal book-bound handbags featuring woodgrain patterns.
reviewed
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Nave De Oro
Wine is as important to life for Venetians as water and a fine take-home tradition persists in Venice for tipplers unable or unwilling to spend on big labels. These wine-stores are crammed with huge glass damigiane (demijohns). From these monsters, each containing a sea of modest Veneto table wine, you make a choice and have it poured into whatever you bring - used wine or mineral-water bottles, it's up to you. You will be charged per litre. There are many branches of this chain around.
reviewed
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Mosaico!
Marta Bertaggia plies Venice’s ancient artisan trade with similar tools used for San Marco’s mosaics a millennium ago: a tiny hammer and rods of raw glass. The glass is gently tapped into square tesserae (small tiles) and painstakingly set into shimmering mosaic vases, mirror frames, a stunning masquerade mask, the lion of San Marco heraldic emblem and careful recreations of Egon Schiele paintings. Custom pieces can be commissioned here too, so you can capture your own mosaic memory of Venice.
reviewed
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Sigfrido Cipolato
Booty worthy of pirate royalty is displayed in this fishbowl-sized window display: a constellation of diamonds in star settings on a ring, a tiny enamelled green snake sinking its fangs into a pearl, and diamond drop earrings that end in enamelled gold skulls. Though they look like heirlooms, these small wonders were worked on the premises by master jeweller Sigfridio – and you’ll pay as little as half what you would at the high-end jewellery showrooms near San Marco that carry Cipolato’s work.
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Antiquariato Claudia Canestrelli
Hand-coloured lithographs of ‘prehistoric’ lagoon fish and 19th-century miniatures of cats dressed as generals are charming souvenirs of Venice’s past, but collector-artisan Claudia Canestrelli is bring- ing back bygone elegance with her repurposed antique earrings, including free-form baroque pearls dangling from tiny silver pigs.
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Marina e Susanna Sent
Warned that women couldn’t handle working in molten glass, two sisters from Murano, trained as an architect and a jeweller, rose to the challenge – and created Murano’s bestselling line of hand-blown glass statement jewellery. Museum shops around Venice feature their work, including ice-blue waterfall necklaces, traffic-stopping red-dot collars, and signature ‘soap’ necklaces: woven clear glass bubbles that make the wearer look both stylish and freshly scrubbed. There’s also a branch at Ponte San Moisè in San Marco.
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