In Venice there are handmade products with a traditional workmanship and, moreover, there are many products made in Italy: from fashion to cooking.
The main street where you can buy the biggest Italian brands is Calle Larga XXII Marzo, near St. Mark’s Square: Shops of Gucci, Versace, Valentino, and important names of Italian fashion await you with bags, shoes and their dress cuts Unmistakable.
Local handicrafts can be purchased in various shops in the city.
Be careful all the products mentioned are hardly reproducible, but they can be counterfeited. In Italy there is a law that provides serious penalties to those who buy counterfeit goods, so do not buy bags or belts on the street.
The city of Venice since 2014 has launched a campaign against imitations and counterfeits:
If you buy counterfeit products renounce quality, contribute to the exploitation of work, endanger your health and risk a penalty of up to 7,000 euros. Do not kill your style, do not buy piracy!
Beware also of all shops that sell souvenirs or junk varies, because they do not have certified products or authentic.
The Venetian handicraft products are, for those who still do not know them:
MURANO GLASS, wonderful blown glass objects created in the furnaces Murano by glass masters. An ancient and traditional work that has seen the creation of those splendid chandeliers called Rezzonico hanging in the most beautiful buildings of the city, the birth of great masters and companies glass known around the world as Venini, Moretti, Cenedese, etc., the export of a craft work that has become an art. Murano glass windows have created a special brand established by the Veneto region that certifies that the products are made in the island of Murano. The shops that sell authenticated glasses have on their products the anti-counterfeiting sticker that certifies their provenance.
LACE, an ancient work exclusively feminine that took place on the island of Burano where it tells a legend that the typical workmanship would be connected to the seafaring tradition of the inhabitants of the small island, linked to the fishing and consequently to the manufacture and To the on-site repair of the nets.
A strong push to the diffusion of this type of craftsmanship was given by the Dogaressa Morosina Morosini, who at the end of the sixteenth century created a laboratory in Venice, in which they found employment 130 lacemakers. At his death the art of lace continued to be cultivated. Given the strong demand, the Corporazioni dei Merciai took its prerogative, organizing work in homes, orphanages, monasteries, hospices, in the islands, thus becoming in the seventeenth century one of Richest corporazioni in Venice.
In the nineteenth century a lace school was opened that made the trade flourish. It was closed in 1970. The production continued privately, thanks also to the birth of a series of local shops. At present, the extreme technical difficulty of the most valuable pieces, and their long or very lengthy gestation (to create a large thickly embroidered tablecloth serves the work of ten lacemakers for three years), have on the one hand made the prices rise enormously, On the other hand, the search for a more hasty and fast machining technique, at the expense of quality.
Go and visit the Lace Museum in the square of Galuppi of Burano.
An elegant shop that sells revisits of the Burano lace is Jesurum near San Marco.
Papier-mâché MASKS, a process that is lost in ancient times with the creation of Baute, masks that were used by the Venetians throughout the carnival that, in other times, was a very long time and was often used also in theater and parties, or was brought to Courting or being courted in mutual anonymity. The almost daily use of the mask therefore required a process that foresaw light materials to wear: The papier mache was certainly among the best.
Starting from the 13th century the history of carnival masks begins to be documented by news about production, schools and techniques of realization. The craftsmen who made masks were called masks, and, after having made a soft and malleable mixture of paper, water and glue (papier-mâché) they inserted it inside a mould of plaster or clay, to which they had previously given the form that They wanted to have the mask in its final result, then they waited for it to dry, they worked the dry mask to make it smooth, without smudges and lumps and then decorated it with colors, beads and various feathers. Even today we use the same technique of artisanal processing.
In Venice there are many shops of masks, we recommend someone who also has the laboratory and where you can see with your eyes the processing of papier-mâché:
The BAUTA in Campo San Tomà
CA ‘ MACANA near Campo San Barnaba
L’ARTISTA DELLA BARBARIA in barbaria Dele Tole near Campo SS Giovanni e Paolo
KARTARUGA in Calle del Paradiso near Campo San Bortolo Mio