ATELIER

In a courtyard of the ancient and most authentic Milan, behind a small door surrounded by potted plants and flowers, hides an unexpected world: made of passion and creativity, respect for the past and continuous experimentation, visual and tactile sensations. Offered by fashion bags, socks and accessories. Handmade.

WELCOME TO MARIA LA ROSA ATELIER

A glamorous, intimate and welcoming location, which preserves a story begun over 30 years ago, still all to be written. Protagonist is a woman who, armed only with dreams and talent, has created a brand symbol of Italian craftsmanship, sold in selected stores all over the world.

For more than a decade, in this enterprise she has been joined by her two daughters Alice and Lisa, contributing to the evolution of the brand without betraying its attitude.


ORIGINS.

Pablo Picasso used to say: “Bad artists copy, geniuses steal”.

Maria La Rosa steals and works out again. Drawing knowledge and suggestions from her origins: childhood in Sicily. Not only the architectures, furnishings, artifacts and nature in which she is immersed are influencing and enchanting her, but also a way of being, living and creating which is authentic and practical, escaping from haste, focusing on manual work and aroused by simple and genuine values. A world she will take with herself even when she will leave Sicily first travelling in Italy with her parents and then moving in Milan for studying. After the beginning of her career in a stylist office, she will begin to follow the most important European fashion shows. In Paris she notices for the first time an old loom: following this encounter her first fabrics are born. With which, from then on, in Nineties she realizes her first bags, using ancient techniques to produce innovative and absolutely new garments. Original: in which art and fashion, tradition and contemporaneity, sustainability and habits merge and confuse. Finding a synthesis.

Noticed by the most influential buying offices, her creations begin to go around the world and to be sold in carefully selected stores. 


TODAY.

Maria la Rosa has two daughters, Alice and Lisa. They grow playing between looms, warps, webs, heddles and shuttles. They realize bags since the days of high school and, shortly after graduation, decide to give their creative and strategic contribution to their mother’s activity.

Business becomes a matter of family and collections further diversify: loom weaving couples with knitting, macramé, crochet and embroidery. Slow workmanship, taken care of even the smallest detail. Fil rouge, handmade: distinctive sign of handicrafts, made without any mechanical aid, in limited editions, using Italian first quality yarns and preferring staples of natural origin. To give shape, color and design to fashion accessories which draw inspiration from different ideas. The result is a style rising from a multidisciplinary research not following the trends. But who is the trend. Which is an expression of the sensibility with whom the stylists pass through their age. “Which rises from our gaze on the world and on the reality that surround us”, they explain. A visionary and concrete look, which does not forget the past and turns itself to the future. To create small artworks without time. 


PARTNERSHIP & PRESS.

Creations signed Maria La Rosa are requested for fashion shows of many fashion houses, including Moschino, Trussardi, Donna Karan, Proenza Schouler, Vera Wang, Luisa Beccaria, Alviero Martini, Blumarine, Betty Jackson, Alexander Wang, Mulberry, Col Angelo, Halston, Tibi and Louis Vuitton.

Frequently published in international fashion magazines such as Vogue, Elle, Marie Claire and Vanity Fair, they have been worn by Scarlett Johansson, Victoria Beckham, Cara Delevingne, Rihanna, Beyoncé, Adèle Exarchopoulos, princess Mette-Marit of Norway and Saudi Arabian princess Reemi.

Art turns into fashion, tradition slips in contemporaneity and sustainability influences behavior. For over thirty years Maria La Rosa atelier conjugates these different universes, only apparently very far away, to create bags, socks and accessories. Unique and original. Handmade: combining a careful selection of raw materials with the slowness of centuries-old weaving techniques. With an always new and innovative look at the world. The result is exclusive and refined garments, produced in limited editions, meeting this way the everlasting criteria of quality and beauty. Deeply linked to the world of Italian craftsmanship and its excellences. Of which she is an example and with which always works, availing herself of a series of collaborators who are integrating part of the brand. Every creation signed by Maria La Rosa has in itself a story made of memories and emotions, which becomes visual and tactile: giving shape - color and design – to objects born hand-weaving the best yarns made in Italy, among which natural fibers are preferred such as cotton, raffia, linen, silk, chenille, cashmere and alpaca. Interweaved with old wooden looms, devoid of mechanical parts and working also with other techniques such as macramé, knit, crochet and embroidery.

A totally manual creative process, which has its roots in the past but is aimed to the future. Synthesis of a continuous stylistic research of a multidisciplinary kind, not only aesthetic and technical: far from the logic of disposable and, with this, from everything that is transient, produced in an industrial way – fast and serial – chasing quantity and profit. Utilitarian and economic purposes replaced by other values: those who bring the idea and with it the suggestions which move it, to be realized in a work, cared of in every detail, created without waste and respecting the environment. It reveals its soul: slow and without time. Where, too, resides its elegance.

A soul belonging to Maria La Rosa and her two daughters, Alice and Lisa. Three women who have a dream and realize it every day. Within a family business that has changed and evolved over time. Preserving its nature, and respecting its history.

I was born in Sicily, my land of origin, to which I remain deeply attached. Although for years now I live and work in Milan, the South continues for me to be a source of inspiration. Maybe the most important.

Since I was a child I have shown interest in every art form and in its details. I was attracted by ornaments and shades of color of ancient palaces and their furnishings, where I stayed with my family, as well as the small-stitched embroidery that embellished my mother’s kit, entirely hand-stitched. I disassembled and reassembled old sweaters. And I loved to draw: It was and yet it is my main way of expressing myself.

Over time I realized how much I was fascinated by fashion and by the possibility of being able in my turn to produce garments. I dreamed of reproducing the beauty not only of what I saw but above all of what I imagined and to do it I tested various techniques. After leaving secondary school, I searched for a faculty answering to my tendencies, the one that more was close was exactly a fashion school. Next I worked in various style business. But it was in Paris that the turning point took place, which coincided with a sort of lightning strike: while strolling along the banks of Seine, inside a junk shop I saw for the first time an old loom. The idea of being able to create a fabric by weaving the yarns struck me so much that, studying on various books and texting myself, I began to dedicate myself to the art of weaving using this ancient instrument. First I choose the smaller ones, those for sampling, then I switched to larger ones. Today, as at one time, I use only manual wooden looms, devoid of mechanical parts.

Handmade has always been my passion. And all I love to do is always linked to manual skills.

I want to invent and to realize: my imagination feeds on shapes and colors and draws inspiration from everything that gives me suggestions or emotions. It can be a book, or a motion picture, a magazine, a video or an object. Or even a landscape: nature goes on to be my first muse, especially that one of South. My shelter is in Puglia: a country house near the sea, privileged spot of my creativity.

“I SEARCH FOR INSPIRATION IN EVERYTHING THAT LIVES AND SURROUNDS ME, I AM CAREFUL WITNESS OF THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD, AND I DRAW AGAIN WHAT STRIKES ME MOST."

Alice Lilla Ferrari

I was born in Milan to Sicilian mother and father from Salento. I was a lively and curious child, sometime rebel: characteristics that I did not lose, even now that I have just the soul of a child.
Grown playing between looms, warps, webs, heddles and shuttles, I invent fabrics since when I was at high school. After graduating in industrial design, I spent several years living abroad, until I decided to come back home to bring my know-how to the family atelier.

In 2007 together with my sister Lisa I founded the Maricò brand, presented at the competition “Who is on next” promoted by Vogue Italia in collaboration with Alta Roma: as part of the Talent Hub project, we were selected to create – for four season – a collection supported by Furla brand. This firs stimulating success was followed by many others, which saw us to collaborate always more frequently with brands, stylists and artists at international level.

For me is vital to create unique and original accessories. I seek inspiration in everything that I live and that surrounds me., from books to art, from music to travelling. In addition to the human being and its endless aspects.

I am careful witness of the contemporary world, and I draw again what strikes me most. We created a family business, almost completely feminine, that believes in collaborators and collaborations and we don’t forget the importance of ethics in working relations. And not only that. I feel part of a fashion called slow, attentive to the environment and ecology: my wish is to create garments lasting over time, intended for those who believe in the respect for the planet and its dwellers. To those who do not think beauty be synonymous of perfection, but rather that beauty is to find also and above all in what can be defined as imperfections: that characterize the handmade and become acquired with the passing of the years. Underlining the peculiarity of it. I love what has been lived through, because talk about life.

“IN THE FAMILY CREATIVITY HAS ALWAYS BEEN AT HOME. AS WELL AS BEING A NORMALITY. AND IT WAS CONSIDERED AS A COMMON GOOD, WHICH EACH OF US COULD REACH”

Lisa Cecilia Ferrari

I feel like a Southerner Milanese: my mother is Sicilian and my father is from Puglia, but Ii was born in Milan. I spent most of my childhood, above all during summer months, in the homelands of my parents, between the landscapes of Puglia and those of Sicily, absorbing images, sensations and warmth. And recipes; my passion for cooking is a legacy of maternal grandmother, who spent all time preparing lunch and dinner, paying attention even to the smallest details. An art, the culinary one, she transmitted me through experience. Just like her daughter, or my mother, passed on to me the art of weaving: she drew, sewed and created all time. Always and unbelievably well. I was watching her, ecstatic. And I tried to imitate her. When she bought her first loom she put it in the middle of the living room as if it was a piece of furniture to share with all of us: in the family creativity was at home. As well as being a normality. And it was treated as a common good, which each of us could reach.  

I have always wanted to travel, possibly without ever stopping, so when I had to choose university I had no doubts: I entered a Foreign Languages and Literatures with an economic address. After graduation, I went to discover different countries. The last one has been Australia. I was thinking about moving there, but homesickness together with the desire to contribute to family business made me change opinion. I came back and I jumped headlong in our business.

Looking back, I have no regrets, on the contrary: almost our projects have come true, giving us a lot of satisfaction. Professional, but not only.  

My dream is always that one to create a Maria la Rosa resort, in which conjugate my love for travelling and responsible tourism with that for fashion and handmade without forgetting slow food. 

We will realize it over time, as it’s in our style: we’re working on it, without frenzy. But with care.