Roberta Di Camerino Venice – Grace Kelly Vintage Handbag
Roberta di Camerino, founded in Venice in 1945: the velvet, the gondola brass, my woven leather clutch and the bag photographed on Grace Kelly’s arm.
The fashion house Roberta di Camerino was founded in Venice in 1945, when the Camerinos returned to Italy. Venice was the founder’s birthplace.
The name of this historical Italian brand is a play on words: Roberta, the title of the 1935 film starring Fred Astaire and Irene Dunne, and Camerino, the designer’s last name after marriage.
The black patent bag above is not mine. I photographed it in an antique shop in Venice. Her iconic bags can easily be found at the vintage markets in Lucca.
Since 1945 her handbags have been on the front line of the fashion world. Roberta di Camerino’s bags turned out to be revolutionary. They were completely different from anything that had been made up until then.
Her bags were copied, using the same materials.
Tessitura Luigi Bevilacqua For Velvet
The bags were made of a special type of velvet, a distinctive fabric for bags, woven on antique looms in the dark to preserve the preciousness of the fabric, in beautiful, rich colours, with clasps. For the velvet she worked with the famous fabric makers Tessitura Luigi Bevilacqua, here in Venice.
This chair is old leather, like the leather used for her handbags.
This was the velvet used from this atelier at the time.
Ornaments Of Gondolas
Imagine holding parts of a gondola on your arm. The studs were created by the craftsmen who make brass ornaments for gondolas. She commissioned them to use the same hardware. They feel sturdy and heavy, and they look wonderful. This is what made Giuliana’s bags revolutionary.
Their uniqueness evokes history, characters and emotions, just like the city itself, where the atelier that supplied her velvet, Tessitura Luigi Bevilacqua, still operates.
Interwoven Lace Leather
Camerino won a Neiman Marcus Fashion Award in 1956, in recognition of the success and influence of her handbags.
The clutch bag that I own is leather lace, interwoven using looms. I bought it in a vintage shop here in Venice. The overall state of the bag is very vintage. The leather lacing is wonderful to see. The outer gold metal, the clasp, is now tarnished. That is why I know it’s original, and it gives me a feeling of nostalgia knowing she created this IT bag of the past.
The leather interior is exactly like the interiors of the gondolas themselves here in Venice. The gold gondola metal inside is stunning and bright.
When you own a Roberta di Camerino bag, you are literally taking a part of Venice’s Made in Italy artisans with you.
Roberta di Camerino History
The brand begins with Giuliana Coen, who founded it. She took Roberta from the film that her favourite song, “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes”, comes from, and Camerino from her husband’s surname.
Who Wore Her Bags?
For fifty years Roberta di Camerino’s bags have been carried by famous women. The best known is the Bagonghi. Grace Kelly was photographed with it on her arm in 1956, and it went round the world with her.
Princess Paola of Liège, Liz Taylor, Gina Lollobrigida, Isabella Rossellini and Farrah Fawcett carried them too. Madonna was seen with the Caravel bag more than once.
Madame Giuliana Camerino Awards
Giuliana Camerino won many awards for her handbags. In 1956 came the Neiman Marcus award, the “Oscar of Fashion”. In the 1960s Giambattista Giorgini invited her to show her trompe l’oeil prêt-à-porter collections in the Sala Bianca at Pitti.
In 1979 she won the Compasso d’Oro, which put her among the designers who change how objects are made.
Palazzo Loredan Grifalconi Tour
When I wrote this, in 2021, the Roberta di Camerino atelier in Venice was in the historical Palazzo Loredan Grifalconi, on Calle della Testa, in the Castello sestiere, or district. In the days of the Venetian Republic this was the Fondaco dei Curami, the leather tanning district, which suits a house built on leather. Her first bag workshop was here in the early 1950s.
The atelier showed the brand’s collections of the day. It also kept some of her finest historical designs, outfits that were being made again to order, in limited numbers, as haute couture.
It was furnished with fine furniture, fourteenth-century commodes and her famous collection of antique horses, a favourite of hers and the inspiration for some of her most successful pieces.
The Most Copied Bag In The World
The press called her work “the most copied in the world”. The atelier had cloches, knitwear, prêt-à-porter, leather goods, scarves and accessories. But above all it was a showroom, a sort of fashion art gallery, where some of her most famous historical pieces were on show.
Giuliana Camerino is one of the designers who changed accessories. She turned a bag into something that can last forever.
Many may copy her, but like Venice itself, her vintage bags can never be replicated.
