Italy is rich in craftsmen. Works with an ancient flavor where the skill of the hands acquires a central and crucial role. Experience, precision and a good dose of patience are the characteristics that a good craftsman must possess. Only in this way can great masterpieces come out. In this regard, the beautiful country has a long story to tell. From Florentine goldsmiths to painted ceramics from Vietri, Grottaglie or Caltagirone. Without forgetting the Murano glass or the large ones embroiderers from North to South. New technologies and often also the desire for easy and chip purchases have created many difficulties in a sector that in the past years has been a flagship of the Italian economy. Fortunately, however, we are seeing a turnaround.
Let's dust off the ancient arts
In recent years we have seen the slow rediscovery of value of craftsmanship. Italy has lost important pieces of its craftsmanship, which ended up in the hands of foreign companies.
However, thanks to the determinations of some "visionaries", aware that to project oneself into the future one must have deep roots, today we are slowly rediscovering our ancient arts. The fashion industry in particular has decided to bring the wonder of craftsmanship back to the center of its work.
Stylists and crafts
The latest collection of Dior presented a Lecce it was a tribute to local crafts. The stylists Dolce & Gabbana they made Sicilian embroidery and lace the protagonists of their dresses. Sicily has often been important location of their advertising campaigns.
Their solidarity project did not go unnoticed during the quarantine #DGhomemade. An initiative for recreate the charm of handmade through tutorials often made at home by their collaborators.
The Fairy-Handed Engraver
One of the central figures of Italian craftsmanship is thescoring unit. Famous glass engravers in Murano. An ancient art, but if you think it is now gone, you are wrong. Waters this time were the major fashion brands to rethink a role for this craftsman with the skilled hands of a fairy.
Like? We at italiani.it have had it told directly by an engraver. It is a young Calabrian woman Mariagrazia Mazza who discovered this passion by chance and now records for the famous brands of the fashion industry.
The meeting with a passionate engraver
Mariagrazia tells us that during her conservation studies on architectural heritage she was preparing an exam on the restoration of old texts. For this reason he goes to the ancient home of a baron, a great lover of art and with one at his disposal extensive personal library.
Mariagrazia spends long days learning next to him but one day her eye falls on a small machine that is used to make engravings. From there the step is short. The man immediately gives her the first lessons on how to use it and, when the work dedicated to books ends, at the moment of saying goodbye he gives her the tools to start this wonderful art: the engraving of glass.
Engraver for Italian fashion
Mariagrazia he has never abandoned this passion which has now become his profession. When she moved to Rome, where she lives with her husband and a beautiful baby, she started making small personalized creations until someone important noticed her. In the wake of the new trends that want the personalization of fashion accessories, it was proposed to engrave the perfume bottles produced by the major brands: Hermes, Dolce & Gabbana, Armani, Givenchy ...
Free rein to the imagination, respecting the line of the brand (the bee for Dior, the sacred images of D&G or the camellias of Chanel), but marrying it to the tastes of customers who ask for a unique and personal piece. If you happen to go shopping in the streets of the capital and are kidnapped by this skilled craftsman who draws on the glass with great patience, stop and observe: if he has a dark bob and red-lacquered nails, it is certainly Mariagrazia.
