Hand-engraved gold defines the work at Buccellati, whose Milan house was opened by Mario Buccellati in 1919. Its rigato technique uses parallel lines, while tulle engraving gives gold a lace-like surface in the house's jewellery. Trussardi began as a Bergamo glove workshop in 1911, later expanding its leather goods under the greyhound emblem. Domenico Orefice works with Lombard artisans on its Man de Milan furniture and objects, including collaborations with ceramics and marble workshops.
Mario Buccellati opened his Milan goldsmith house in 1919, developing hand-engraving techniques such as rigato's parallel lines and tulle engraving that turns gold into lace. The house is now led by the fourth generation, Andrea and Lucrezia Buccellati.
Best for Hand-engraved gold and heirloom silver.
Mario Buccellati opened in Milan in 1919 and D'Annunzio, his most flamboyant client, called him "the Prince of Goldsmiths." The nickname stuck because the work was unmistakable: gold treated as fabric. Buccellati's engravers use techniques the Renaissance would recognize — rigato's parallel lines that make metal shimmer like silk, tulle engraving that turns gold into lace — executed with tools essentially unchanged in a century.
The house is a dynasty in the literal sense. Gianmaria Buccellati carried his father's craft through the twentieth century; today Andrea Buccellati oversees creation with his daughter Lucrezia, the fourth generation. The signatures compound across formats — the Macri bracelets, honeycomb Tulle rings, Ornato silverware that sets embassy tables, and the annual one-of-a-kind cocktail rings that collectors treat as a vintage.
Since 2019 the maison has been part of Richemont, its ateliers still in Italy, still hand-engraving. In an industry of polished surfaces, Buccellati sells texture — the only house whose gold you recognize by touch.
Trussardi began in Bergamo in 1911 as a fine leather glove workshop, later expanding into Milan's leather-luxury lifestyle house. Its greyhound emblem, adopted in 1973, has marked the brand across a century of Italian leather goods.
Best for Greyhound leather goods.
Trussardi began in Bergamo in 1911 as a glove workshop — Dante Trussardi's fine leather gloves supplied royal houses and, eventually, the Italian army — and the greyhound that became its emblem in 1973 announced the transformation: grandson Nicola Trussardi turned a glover into Milan's leather-lifestyle house, among the first Italian labels to think in total-brand terms, from bags to cars' interiors to restaurants.
Nicola's instinct for spectacle made the greyhound a Milanese fixture — he staged fashion's first show at La Scala and turned Piazza della Scala's Palazzo Trussardi into a cultural salon with a Michelin-starred café. The leather goods carried the argument: saffiano-textured bags and accessories built with glove-maker fineness.
The family era ended gradually — tragedy took Nicola in 1999 and his son Francesco in 2003; daughters Beatrice and Gaia carried it forward before investors took control. The house today is smaller than its myth, but the myth is the asset: a century of Italian leather, one lean silver dog.
Milan design studio founded 2010 by Domenico Orefice; its 'Man de Milan' line ('Hands of Milan') pairs objects and furniture with Lombard artisans - ceramics, marble, textile and furnace workshops.
Best for Collectible design
Domenico Orefice Design Studio is a Milan-based design and art-direction practice founded in 2010 by designer Domenico Orefice, based on Via Lorenteggio in Milan. The studio works across interior design, product design and branding, describing its approach as working across the traditional boundaries between design, craftsmanship and art. In 2018 the studio launched "Man de Milan" - Milanese dialect for "hands of Milan" - a collection of furniture, objects and textiles produced in collaboration with artisans from Milan and Lombardy. Pieces in the collection include "Mulino," a rotating bookshelf referencing Leonardo da Vinci's mechanical drawings, and objects made at the historic Fornace Curti furnace, including diamond-shaped "Curti tiles" and a piggy-bank-to-flowerpot piece called "Salvadane." The studio has also worked with regional makers including ceramics producer Ceramiche Keope, marble workshop Alfaterna Marmi, and textile mill Lanificio Leo, extending the same collaborative-craft approach across ceramics, marble, wood and textile pieces.
Milan stationery-printing shop opened 9 July 1909 by brothers Costante and Luigia Bonvini in the Corso Lodi/San Luigi district, and restored to working order in 2014 with its original treadle press, 1930s Imperia platen press and wooden type drawers intact. Today it operates as a working letterpress and bookbindery, running typography and traditional paper workshops.
Best for Working 1909 Milan letterpress shop and bookbindery with original presses
Fratelli Bonvini opened as a stationery shop on 9 July 1909, when siblings Costante and Luigia Bonvini set up along Corso Lodi in Milan's then-industrial San Luigi district. The business quickly expanded into printing to serve the growing neighborhood, turning out everything from letterheads to price lists on machinery that included a late-19th-century treadle press, a 1930 Imperia platen press and a 1950s Heidelberg Stella -- all still on site today. Costante's daughter Leila Bonvini and her husband Luigi Cambieri kept the family workshop running for decades afterward.
In 2014, the associates of FBM S.r.l. carried out a conservative restoration of the premises at Via Tagliamento 1, preserving the original layout, printing machines, bookbinding equipment and wooden typographic drawers rather than converting the space. Bonvini 1909 reopened as a working shop and cultural venue combining a functioning letterpress, a bookbindery and gallery space for exhibitions.
The workshop today runs typography and bookbinding services alongside courses -- including a paste-paper (carta colla) workshop teaching the centuries-old technique for decorating book endpapers and covers -- positioning Bonvini 1909 as one of Milan's few surviving working print-and-bindery botteghe rather than a museum piece.
Luca Gnecchi Ruscone revived his grandfather's Eritrean optical trade into Italy's cult eyewear house — acetate frames hand-finished in Italian workshops, anti-fashion silhouettes named for African cities, sold from a Brera flagship that feels like a colonial-era study.
Best for Hand-made Italian frames with an East African soul.
Francesco Maglia has been stewarded by the same family since 1854, when the first Francesco Maglia began making umbrellas by hand; the business moved to Milan in 1876 and today works from a small workshop at Corso Genova 7, now run by the sixth generation.
Best for One-piece solid-stick umbrellas hand-finished through roughly 70 steps
Francesco Maglia has been stewarded by the same family since 1854, when the first Francesco Maglia began making umbrellas by hand; the business moved to Milan in 1876 and today works from a small workshop at Corso Genova 7, now run by the sixth generation. Around 1900 Milan had roughly 100 umbrella makers; Maglia is one of the last still doing it entirely by hand, and rival houses reportedly buy component parts from them rather than the reverse.
Every umbrella passes through about 70 production steps. The house's signature is the solid-stick umbrella, in which handle and shaft are cut from a single piece of wood — walnut, hickory, chestnut, rosewood, ebony, and a dozen other species are all in use — with the handle tied to the stick during finishing to hold its round shape. Canopies are a custom Jacquard blend of cotton, silk and wool with a Teflon coating; the crown is milled brass produced in-house, the slider cast iron.
Maglia's ready-made pieces have sold through Barneys New York, Bergdorf Goodman, Paul Stuart, Gucci and Loewe, but the workshop itself remains what it was in 1854: a handful of craftspeople finishing every stick and rib by hand in one Milan address.
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