Sottoportego di Rialto: workshops, goldsmiths, artisans, boutiques, fashion, and creativity.
The Sottoportego de Rialto is the new shopping street in Venice. The ancient street of goldsmiths is now a place for workshops, artisans, designers, and research boutiques, who have come together to offer the public the cultural experience of Venetian creativity: jewelry, fashion, design, craftsmanship, and sustainability under the Rialto Bridge.
The origin of the name, Sotoportego dei Oresi, derives from the presence of numerous goldsmith workshops, traces of which can be found in documents dating back to 1015. In March 1331, a resolution of the Great Council was approved, requiring goldsmiths to trade, work, and sell gold within the Insula of Rialto.
The frescoes of the Rialto porticos are among the few remaining external frescoes of the extensive work also carried out by important artists such as Giorgione, Titian, Tintoretto, and Veronese, who made Venice the Painted City in the 16th century. Every shop and every artisan had the vault above their business painted, bringing prestige while simultaneously keeping the public building in good condition.
After the first event during Venice Fashion Week, the shopkeepers gathered in the Sottoportego de Rialto association to organize events and create new opportunities to engage with the public.
Marina and Susanna Sent
Sisters Marina and Susanna Sent run their company in Murano, specializing in the creation of glass jewelry and artistic objects: sculptures made with traditional techniques, from murrine glass to filigree, fused glass plates, and glass fabric lamps.
The specificity of Sent, which combines craftsmanship with the search for innovative solutions, clearly emerges in the creation of original glass jewelry, the result of a process of stylistic and technical renewal within traditional workmanship.
Marina and Susanna’s creations are characterized by a constant search for structural and formal simplification, and by a modernity suspended between the minimalism of transparent and ephemeral elements and the imagination of colorful and lively elements.
S. Polo 70
www.marinaesusannasent.com
Instagram
Attombri
Since the late 1980s, Stefano and Daniele Attombri have been reinterpreting the history, techniques, and potential of Murano glass in a contemporary key, ranging between fashion and applied arts.
Inside their atelier, they continue the quintessentially Venetian tradition of the perlere (bead creators and stringers), expanding the potential of ancient knowledge with new techniques of their own exclusive creation for the production of lamps, decorative and functional objects, and, above all, extraordinary jewelry.
S. Polo 65
www.attombri.com
Instagram
Piedàterre
A treasure-chest of a shop run by Alessandra and Renato, protagonists of its international success in recent years. They are the ones who choose the fabrics, matching colors, materials, and textures based on the impulses of the moment, the past, or the future; and they are the ones who design its evolution to ensure it stays in step with the times, as an expression of changing life.
The furlane slippers are made using ecological methods, reusing precious materials and following traditional methods with the introduction of sustainable innovations.
A tradition that has consolidated over the decades of the twentieth century, perfecting construction techniques and the choice of materials, until the furlana became a footwear increasingly appreciated for its comfort and the sense of freedom it ensures for the foot’s movement.
Gondoliers were the first to adopt them for their special characteristics: non-slip, they guaranteed perfect stability without damaging the precious paintwork of the boat that symbolizes the Serenissima.
S. Polo 40
www.piedaterre-venice.com
Instagram
TABINOTABI
TABINOTABI creations are made with fabrics produced exclusively using high-tech organic plant yarns.
The production cycle employed is closed-loop, with no release of chemical waste. This innovative and ecological process, officially recognized as suitable for “sustainable development,” firmly incorporates seaweed into a natural cellulose fiber. In doing so, the positive properties of the seaweed itself are permanently preserved within the fiber even after multiple wash cycles.
S. Polo 63
Instagram
Il Giardino di Pippo
A design boutique run by three designers: a unique place where Lorenzo, Carolina, and Marco Marin “cultivate” their ideas. Objects, lamps, furnishing accessories, and clothing items take shape thanks to the skill of Italian artisans.
S. Polo 64
ilgiardinodipippo.com
Instagram
L’Artistica Gioielleria
Maia creates jewelry with precious and semi-precious stones on gold and silver, also upon customer request, strings certified pearls, and during Venice Fashion Week, she demonstrated how to drill a pearl and how to extract an opal from the raw stone. “I have combined fine jewelry with my own creations,” says Maia, whose name is actually Maigualida. Jewelry is also upcycling: “I started by reinventing jewelry from broken necklaces, and gradually I gained more and more Venetian customers.”
S. Polo 66/67
lartisticamaia@gmail.com
Brooksfield
A men’s fashion boutique for a total look dedicated to a man who is attentive to style but free from seasonal trends and passing fads.
Brooksfield was founded in Turin in 1971 and represents tradition that constantly innovates, offering accessible luxury through elegant garments that are pleasant to wear and durable.
S. Polo 68
www.brooksfield.com
Instagram
Emilio Ceccato
The historic Emilio Ceccato shop was founded in 1902 at the foot of the Rialto Bridge. It has always been the reference point for the clothing of the Gondoliers, and also serves as the technical sponsor of the Association of Gondoliers of Venice.
Recently, it has also become one of the places to find the beloved design objects by Pieces Of Venice: vaporettos, swings, rocking horses, walking sticks, shoehorns, and pillboxes, conceived by important designers and created in the name of sustainability using wood from Venetian briccole and piers.
The beautiful project for the reuse of discarded materials from the Venice area and its lagoon, carried out by a social cooperative of people with disabilities, is by Luciano Marson, a Compasso d’Oro winner for graphics and two-time Compasso d’Oro winner for design. Luciano, along with Luca Cerchier, Karin Friebel, and other designers, create design objects that are fragments of the Venice Lagoon to spread “the Venetian nature of things,” the values of Venice represented by great craftsmanship: www.piecesofvenice.com/salva-venezia-un-pezzo-alla-volta.
S. Polo 16/17
emilioceccato.com
Instagram
Gles
S. Polo 71/A
gles1srl@gmail.com
Chose
S. Polo 72
infochose@gmail.com
Outly
After debuting in Venice in 2009, Outly now has 28 points of sale strategically located across 4 countries.
Over time, Outly has increased its presence and expanded its expertise, investing primarily in the eyewear segment. Vision is a precious asset that is important to care for by turning to prepared and reliable professionals. For this reason, Outly has decided to equip every store with specialized optical staff and latest-generation machinery for lens processing and fitting.
S. Polo 75/76
www.outly.it
Instagram
Matisse
Matisse by Francesco Parma is a boutique of handcrafted bijoux that has been present for twenty years in the Sottoportego de Rialto.
Francesco offers unique pieces with original designs, accessories, and furnishing objects in wood, bone, fabric, hypoallergenic metal, shells, or resin with evocative colors full of character.
S. Polo 53
www.matissevenezia.com
Instagram
Damì abbigliamento
Damì abbigliamento offers Made in Italy women’s clothing, embellished and completed by handcrafted necklaces and bags of their own production.
S. Polo 55/a
damianaf67@gmail.com
Instagram
Cashmeritaly
For some, cashmere is a true lifestyle, and in Rialto, the corner boutique at the entrance of the Sottoportego presents various collections of cashmere accessories and clothing in bright colors for men and women.
S. Polo 48/49
www.icashmerissimi.com
Instagram
Mud & Water
Streetwear meets graffiti culture in Venice. Under the Rialto porticos, you can find the street culture store featuring some of the most beloved brands: Carhartt, Vans, Stussy, The North Face, RipNdip, Doomsday, Dollynoire, Iuter, Octopus, and others.
S. Polo 51
mud.water@alice.it
Instagram
Click here if you want to discover other artisan businesses in Venice.
The Vaporetto on the cover is a design by Marco Zito for Pieces of Venice. Photos are by Rossana Viola @rossviola, Marta Formentello @itsmartaeffe for Venezia da Vivere, or courtesy of the workshops.
