Barindelli e Trezzi

Barindelli e Trezzi has traded from Piazza Mazzini in Bellagio, on Lake Como, since 1944, under the arcades between the Grand Hotel Villa Serbelloni and Hotel Florence. The business draws on two family trades: one great-grandfather, Ettore Sola, ran wool spinning in the Biella valleys in the early 20th century, while another, Francesco, developed leather container-making in the family workshop - a combination that still shows in the shop's split between silk and leather goods today. By the family's own account, American servicemen stationed in Bellagio at the end of the Second World War were among the first to buy the Italian-made silk and leather pieces that built the shop's early reputation. The current range centres on men's silk ties, scarves, bow ties and pocket squares in 100% pure silk, alongside handmade women's leather bags and travel luggage; handcrafted umbrellas are made individually using the same traditional techniques rather than assembled from stock parts, sitting as a genuine but secondary line next to the silk and leather. The workshop also makes fabric-and-leather trolleys and toiletry cases, and keeps a practice of recovering offcuts from larger production runs into smaller items like coin purses and key rings rather than discarding them - a detail that reflects a small workshop's economics as much as any sustainability branding.