Artisans from every corner of Italy are putting their spin on Fendi’s iconic Baguette bag. Its designer, Silvia Venturini Fendi, explains why

Last year, Silvia Venturini Fendi was on holiday with her girlfriends in Palermo when she came across a small bottega run by a middle-aged artisan and his father. Enchanted by the beautiful handmade homewares on display, she spent all morning in the store-meets-workshop buying up pieces for her Roman home. A passionate preserver of Italian artisanship, she asked where the third generation was? The man’s daughter, despite knowing how to make everything, was only interested in becoming a fashion model, he said. “What a pity,” Venturini Fendi replied. “She should come here and continue all these incredible things you’re doing. Sometimes you look far when you don’t see great things happening under your eyes.”

The man implored her to convince his daughter and, in classic spontaneous Italian style, it wasn’t long before Venturini Fendi was on the phone sharing her own enthusiasm for family businesses. “The way you learn is by watching people working,” she tells me. “There’s no instruction manual – artisans have to pass on and show their creativity.”