About us
Maestri di Fabbrica, a shop owned by the Idetos s.r.l. company, has been working for many years to promote artistic and traditional craftsmanship.
From this experience three own production lines were born, such as the line of perfumes and fragrances for the person and the home under the Maestri di Fabbrica brand, that of unique pieces with a high artistic imprint, for use for the person, the home or as a gift, created by Daniele Calamandrei and that of costume jewellery inspired by symbolic monuments of important cities of art, under the MyTravels Florence© brand.
Our team
The professionals of the main reference are:
- Susanna Milani, business consultant, event organizer, designer and expert visual
- Daniele Calamandrei, business consultant, researcher, designer.
Interview with SUSANNA MILANI
Susanna Milani is one of the souls of Maestri di Fabbrica, as well as a true expert in high costume jewelry. Let's try to find out a little more about her.
Q. Good morning, can I call you Susi?
A. Of course. Everyone calls me that.
Q. Maestri di Fabbrica was born as a point of reference, as well as a meeting point, for artisans and artistic factories in the mainly Tuscan area. Why international costume jewelry at Maestri di Fabbrica?
A. Let's not call it costume jewelry.
Q. And what do we call it?
A. Let's call it "non-precious jewelry", or "low-cost jewelry". But that's not exactly correct. Because in reality the only thing that is non-precious is the metal, but the workmanship behind it is precious, done by true "masters". In fact, American costume jewelry was born after World War II, by many Italian goldsmiths who immigrated to the United States, where they applied the techniques of the Italian goldsmith tradition to non-precious metals, such as brass, copper, etc. Then, over time, masters of different nationalities were added. From their commitment, between the 1950s and 1970s of the last century, pieces of great charm and personality emerged, timeless, still able to attract numerous enthusiasts, collectors, connoisseurs.
Q. And why this at Maestri di Fabbrica?
A. Because as I told you, it is the work of great masters, a form of high craftsmanship, which can rightfully be included in the list of activities represented by Maestri di Fabbrica. And because this type of craftsmanship represents my personal passion.
Q. And who are these masters?
A. Gustavo Trifari, or Alfred Philippe, jewelry designer for Cartier and then for Trifari. Or Adolph Katz, designer of Coro or Edmund Mario Granville designer of Monet. And then let's not forget Miriam Haskell who was a true genius.
Q. Listening to you, one would say that the customer of Maestri di Fabbrica can find here a true expert in high costume jewelry. Is that so?
A. It's not up to me to say. I can say that the customers of Maestri di Fabbrica are both private enthusiasts and retailers, as such connoisseurs, but who rely on my personal research and selection activity and let themselves be advised.
Q. How did you acquire this expertise?
A. First of all out of passion. By carefully analyzing the pieces that I initially loved to collect, studying the most important publications, starting from the one who for me is the guru of costume jewelry, Judith Miller. Years and years of study and research. For this reason, to each customer, I feel in a position to issue, for any piece purchased here at Maestri di Fabbrica, a certificate of authenticity.
Q. But here at Maestri di Fabbrica the customer can only find pieces from the history of American costume jewelry?
A. No. Also contemporary pieces from the most famous jewelry designers, mostly Italian and European. But in this case the meaning is different: the research is done to make a luxury object accessible to a normal person. You could say luxury within reach. For example, if you want a Cavalli watch you can find it here at a tenth of its market price. To do this you need to know how to find and recognize opportunities. Without taking advantage of the customer, however. Precisely for the purpose of luxury within reach.
Interview with DANIELE CALAMANDREI
Daniele Calamandrei is the artisan hand of Maestri di Fabbrica, who creates a line of unique pieces, with a high artistic imprint, decorated by hand, through the inlay of fragments of leather or eco-leather. Let's try to find out a little more about him together.
Q. Good morning Daniele. If you had to introduce yourself in a few words, how would you define yourself?
A. A question that is personally impossible for me to answer. In fact, I believe that a person is above all for what they do. So it is what they have done that defines them more than anything else. I could say who I have been so far. I would prefer, however, to try to tell you what I am for what I am doing, but which, not having accomplished it, is still undefined. It would be a bit like telling you today how I would like to be remembered tomorrow.
Q. And how would you like to be remembered tomorrow?
A. I would like to be remembered as an Actor and an Artist. At the moment I am neither one nor the other. In a bizarre way, perhaps I am one. Perhaps.
Q. But if you're not yet, why still aspire to it?
A. The seemingly strange thing is that Actor and Artist represent communicative roles and it's always been difficult for me to communicate. It may have been my shyness, my introverted nature. It may have been the timbre of my voice or my slightly too rustic way of speaking. The fact is that making myself understood has never been my best quality. Thinking about it now, wanting to be remembered as an Actor and Artist is as if I wanted to get to the bottom of it having managed to overcome my personal limit, after having worked on it all my life. So, succeeding is important, but having tried is even more so.
Q. But in any case, do you think you can do it?
A. Obviously I'm not sure I can do it, but I've always tried and I'm doing it now. I couldn't communicate out loud and so I tried with acting and music. However, my emotionality made me incapable in both situations. I wasn't even very good at writing. I have varied situations, I have done many things: I have been an accountant, a business consultant, a trainer, a teacher, a researcher, I have written books. They are all activities that largely communicate with words. I was happy to have done them and, for a good part of the time, to have done them well. However, I realized that they all led to a way of verbal communication that constantly presented the risk of repeating itself in the same way, monotonous, repetitive like a continuous copy/paste.
Q. And then?
A. Then I did many other things: I repaired everything, I worked with electricity, plumbing, paint, wood, iron. I was even a cook. It is as if I had played many parts in a comedy up to now, just like an Actor. In a certain sense I could say that I have already been an Actor.
Q. So the Artist would be missing?
A. Through the many professions I have verified that my hands were the medium that gave me the most satisfaction. There was a paraplegic alabaster worker who, with his ways of speaking, revealed the paradigm of communicating with the hands. His nickname was Pupo. He used to say: “Going to the workshop for me is like a cure. Feeling the sound of the stone with my hands, transforming it, seeing what comes out of it, makes me feel good”. Or something like that. And then he used to say: “I do the most beautiful job in the world because the customers are not customers but become friends”. They became friends because he was pleased by the wonder he read in their eyes when they observed the fruit of his work. It was the emotion he aroused and the emotion he felt in reaching the end of the work that represented his total self-realization.
Q. Have you read this emotion in the eyes of the customers?
A. I often had the sensation of reading it. The object seemed “beautiful” in their eyes. However, I think that this is not enough to be an artist. Something more is needed. So I tried to perfect and articulate my way of communicating with my hands: I married my own personal technique, that of inlaying with fragments of leather and eco-leather; I thought of a channel, that of decorating everyday objects. These are not static presences; they move with the person. Think of a bag or a wallet. They interact with her when she uses them, whether it is an object that is turned on to illuminate or the same bag already mentioned. I try to represent something that has a complete meaning for me, as if trying to speak to those who, by purchasing the object, want to listen. Right now I try to express meanings that correspond to collective values that are good to always be inspired by in everyday life. Values to always carry with you, like “Fratelli in fuga”, a decoration dedicated to all those forced to abandon their homes because they are persecuted by wars, injustices, miseries, which remind us of the tragedies close to our doorstep and that concern us personally.Or like “A country on the bridge”, to tell us that there are events that pose a dilemma to a community on which path to take so that there is a future for everyone, but with respect to which each person must ask themselves what their personal part and responsibility is. I also continue to remind myself of the need to be humble: you can have an idea about things, you can try to communicate it, but the real artists are others. You can only take inspiration from them and celebrate them. I do this with my own line of decorations, called “Inspirations”, which takes up the subjects of works by greats from the distant and recent past.
Q. When will you be able to call yourself an “Artist”?
A. An artist is not defined. He is defined. I don’t know if this will happen. I would like to. I still have a lot of my own work to do to get there. I would be content to recognize a positive emotion in the face of another, happy and proud to divulge, in the daily use of one of my objects, what I have tried to tell him.
Q. Where are you now?
A. In what sense?
Q. In the sense of how accomplished do you feel as an artist?
A. Well, it’s like when you ask a person what another person is like, alluding to the aesthetic level and he, having difficulty telling the truth, answers evasively: “She’s nice.” How do I feel as an artist? Nice.
Informations
IDETOS S.R.L.
Borgo degli Albizi, 68R
50122 Firenze (Italy)
T. +39 055 242321
email: info@maestridifabbrica.it