Breakfast at Richard Ginori's

Celebrating Pitti Uomo 91 - the florentine fashion fair - the Italian Manufacture Richard Ginori hosts a charming breakfast in the beautiful flagship store of Palazzo Ginori. Between precious porcelaines and an amazing set, the event sees the collaboration of Scott Schuman

Richard Ginori Flagship Store | Florence

Richard Ginori - bought and relaunched by Gucci brand - reopened its historic store in Florence, last summer. The fully renovated boutique,

Rebirth | Italian Ceramics

I discovered and fell in love with Rebirth ceramics when I was first looking at OdArt collection. I immediately liked the contemporary finishing combined with traditional shapes and I loved it more when I read about their concepts, values and manufacturing

My Italian Christmas Food (short) List

I enjoy going shopping to the mall before Christmas. This year I found the beautiful gifts above: Bedetti Brick-Like Torrone and Stainer chocolate pralines. WOW!
As every Christmas in Italy, I also bought: handmade Panettone (to be a real Panettone, it has to follow these severe rules), Pandoro, Panforte and Spumante (I bought a special offer of the magnificent Rotari but here is a more extensive list).

Bialetti - the Italian Moka

In Italy, when we say la Bialetti we're probably talking about the most known moka pot designed in 1933 by Luigi De Ponti and produced by Bialetti company.

Cruciani, Italian macramé lace bracelets

The four-leaf clover bracelet was an idea of Luca Caprai and was designed to communicate Cruciani to a young and increasingly well informed and demanding public.  Lace may seem distant from modern day tastes but it in fact encapsulates many elements of our culture and traditions.

The Cruciani four-leaf clover bracelet phenomenon exploded in August 2011, when there were endless queues at the Cruciani boutique in Forte dei Marmi, day and night, to get the summer bracelet in one or more colours. This boom rapidly spread throughout the whole of Italy and beyond.

Pastiglie Leone - Absinthium

The Pastiglie Leone is  one of the oldest manufacturers in Italy, specializing in pastilles and candies from 1857, when Luigi Leone founded a small artisanal factory in the northern Italian town of Alba. After becoming famous for their quality (the Pastiglie Leone were the favorite of the Count Cavour), the production moved to Turin.
The Pastiglie Leone are still made using pure plant extracts, essential oils and natural coloring to produce an intensely flavored candy with a chalky texture. Coming in more than thirty flavors, such as anise, arquebuse, fernet, violet, they are packed  in small cardboard boxes wrapped in pastel colored paper that matches the color of the flavour and is printed with art deco graphics. I'm talking about the pocket sizes but there are also beautiful colored tins.
It's a lot of time that I was thinking of writing a post about the Pastiglie Leone - as one of my preferred Italian products - and when I saw the absinthe flavour packaging I thought the time was arrived!

The absinthe - assenzio in Italian - called also Green Fairy, reminds me the Poètes maudits and Paris and intrigued me immediately. It also inspired me this styling. I hope you like it!

 

Rossignoli Milano - Italian Bikes

Four models of Rossignoli collection

Located in Corso Garibaldi, Rossignoli was established in Milan in 1900.
Made by Italian craftsmen, Rossignoli bicycles comply to the values of quality and respect for traditions. These values together with elegance and classic taste are the hearth of Rossignoli's collection. You can visit the Officina to choose one of their original model, to rent one, to repair yours, to look for unthinkable accessories or to meet bikelovers.
This family run Officina is an authentique piece of history of the town.

Catalogue
Blog

Officina

During Fuorisalone 2013

Florence on Sister Magazine 7 - the big ITALY issue!

EN   -   DE

Sister Magazine 7 is out! Main theme of the magazin: "Do you know the land where lemons grow?" - the big ITALY issue! I'm very honoured that Thea and Tony published my article about Florence :-) You can choose between the English or the Deutsche version.
Soon I will post new photos about crafters in Florence.

READ IT HERE

Society – Limonta – Italian textiles

The most intriguing stories often start with a question. “Why not create something for ourselves, when all we have created so far has been solely for others?” The rumination is that of Limonta, a firm that started life in 1893 in Costamasnaga, near Lecco, an area with one of the longest textile manufacturing traditions in Europe. Limonta has worked in the clothing, furnishing, sports, and automobile sectors. Answering to the previous question, Limonta has formed in 2000, Society, a special firm driven by the desire to try out innovative solutions in home couture.
Society selects the best fibres from linen to wool and unearths those that perhaps nobody any longer uses, such as manila hemp. Thanks to the production capacity of the Limonta Group, Society can now produce “in house” flat-weave and jacquard-weave fabrics, velvets and terry cloth, and much else, and take the time to try out new combinations and mixes never yet tried. This is a real luxury to afford today.

Let’s take “whole-product dyeing”. This is a dyeing technique in which fabrics are assembled in unprocessed form and then dyed in the “dye bath”, without any mechanized drive. The result is a natural, spontaneous imperfection that confers on each single item a distinctly “used” appearance and, at the same time, makes it shrink resistant to every wash. In this way, every tablecloth and every bed sheet has a unique colour shade that marks it out from any other. This feature increases the scope to combine, mix, and create differences and unusual colour contrasts. It is Society that thought of them, but the creativity is left to you.

Society's range of products includes: table, bedroom, bathroom, accessories, clothing, baby.
http://www.societylimonta.com/

Marvis - Italian stylish toothpaste

Marvis Amarelli Licorice



Styling and photo by 20 Kvadrat



Marvis Whitening

Brush happy. Why shouldn’t your toothpaste be stylish? From the retro-cool packaging to breath-freshening flavors, Marvis aims to elevate your morning routine.

Manufactured in Florence - Italy - by Ludovico Martelli S.r.l., Marvis has been known for its cult-worthy toothpastes since the 1970s, when its distinctive tubes began cropping up in high-end shops. Over the years, the company has continued to up the style quotient.
Marvis has revolutionized the concept of toothpaste giving it a multi-faceted, modern interpretation and an extraordinary appeal. The breakthrough collection boasts 7 masterpieces of taste. Marvis stands out on account of its trendy image with an increasingly up-to-date, original and ironic flavor, inspired by the art and fashion worlds, capable of capturing and involving a spellbound public, who is curious and open-minded.
The cool advertising campaign is by Chapeaux Group.

Info: Ludovico Martelli S.r.l. - via Faentina n.169/12 - 50010 Caldine (FI) - Italy
Sources: Marvis, Birchbox, 20 Kvadrat.


The Original Marvis Classic Strong Mint



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Le Friulane, Italian handcrafted slippers

The friulane (or furlane) are handcrafted slippers taken from the ancient tradition of Friuli and later used from the gondoliers in Venice because their rubber sole was perfect to respect the paint of the gondolas.
They were originally created recycling old bicycle tires to make the sole, canvas jute bags (used for the transport of seeds and grains) to make the pads, and old clothes to make the uppers.
The traditional jewel-bright velvet slippers appear now as luxurious shoes, they are updated in many forms and still handcraftedly produced by artisans in northeast of Italy.
I bought mines at Mr Gianni Dittura's cobbler shop opened from 1948 in Venice San Marco 819–820, or Dorsoduro 871. Telephone: (+39) 041 5231163. I wear them at home but also outside in the summer, I love them!