Italy: Giulia Chimento, Partner at Venini

Elegant, hand-made glassware and chandeliers steeped in history and tradition from ‘the Dior of lighting and vases’ is very much the forte of the renowned high quality glassmaker Venini. Partner of the highly respected family-run company Giulia Chimento provides a fascinating insight to its heritage, craft and evolution, and what’s next for the creative artisans.

Can you please give us an overview about the history of the Murano glass artisanship?

The history of glass began a lot of centuries ago. The initial glass was discovered by the Phoenicians. Again the Romans were actually the initial people to experiment and develop new techniques concerning glass. These techniques reached Venice around 1100-1200. Initially, all the furnaces were located on the island of Venice.

In 1291, the Doge decided to bring all the furnaces to Murano, on the island, for two major reasons. Initial, he was concerned about the possibility of damage from fire accidents. If a fire developed in Venice, there was the risk of damaging paintings, buildings, and churches. The second reason was to preserve the secret techniques of glass making within the territory of Venice and not to spread it to the other Italian territories. If someone tried to export those techniques, the Doge would kill them.

So, Murano has actually been the island of glass since 1291. Since again, it developed as the majority significant glass district worldwide. There is a very significant museum, the Museum of Glass, which is actually the second most visited museum in Venice, next Palazzo Ducale.

What to you is the meaning of Made in Italy, and what is the contribution of Venini in this sense?

I travel all over the world. I’m away 200 days per year, in the United States, Asia, China, India, and Europe. The thing that I have understood, particularly from the Asian market, which is one of the majority significant markets for us, is that Made in Italy for them is not just a brand, it’s a way of life. They love the way Italian people live, the way they behave, the way they dress up, the way that they refurbish their houses. It’s a way of life.

With regards to Venini, it represents very well the Made in Italy abroad because Venini and Made in Italy are both synonymous with high quality. We have very strict quality controls—pieces that don’t satisfy quality controls are around 35% to 40%—because we want to keep very high quality standards of what we sell. So, quality, but as well uniqueness is something that comes to my mind at the same time as I think about Made in Italy. That’s exactly the major other feature of Venini. Everything is handmade inside the factory. Even if we blow some pieces inside moulds the quantity of glass that they take from the oven is actually different so the thickness of glass will be different anyway. Each piece we produce is a incomparable piece. You cannot find one piece exactly the same as an extra because the color can vary and the shape too.

Made in Italy as well means heritage, because all the Italian companies in fashion, design and agri-food have an significant history. Venini was established in 1921. We are celebrating our 95th anniversary. We concentrate on our history and learn from our beautiful completed to innovate and develop an even brighter next. That’s what I say to the designers at the same time as they come to see the furnaces. You have to see the history and from there, create something new. So history, but at the same time innovation and technology.

What would you say are the major milestones that contributed to the transformation of Venini into a world player? And what are the key innovations that you see as critical in order to push forward this incomparable know-how?

Venini was founded by Paolo Venini, who was a lawyer from Milan, so he didn’t have anything to do with the glass industry and Murano. He established the company together with Giacomo Cappellin, who was a Venetian antique dealer. This was completely atypical at the time because people from Murano used to see people coming from outside the island as strangers. Paolo Venini brought innovation to Murano because he started to work with external architects, designers and artists. At that time, and in a lot of cases still nowadays, the owner of the factory is at the same time the owner, commercial director, designer and master.

Collaboration was, and still is today, the major feature and the biggest success of the company because nobody else in Murano has ever created these links with external designers. The initial designer Venini cooperated with was Vittorio Zecchin, who was at the time as well the art director of the company. During that period, the style of Murano glass was full of decorative items, golden leaves, lots of decorations applied to the glass, typical of the Belle Époque. Vittorio Zecchin took inspiration from the masters of the Renaissance, so very clean lines, very clear and transparent colors, very delicate.

This was the initial revolution that Paolo Venini brought into the Murano island. And in fact, the initial vase ever designed by Venini and Vittorio Zecchin is the Veronese. It’s called Veronese because the inspiration was taken from a painting by Paolo Veronese, which is still kept at the Accademia Gallery nowadays. And it’s still one of the pieces we sell the majority, since 1921. Next the 1920s, they started cooperating with some other artists like Tomaso Buzzi, Napoleone Martinuzzi; and they as well started to participate in the Biennale and Triennale. They wanted the name Venini to become known all over the world.

Next that came Carlo Scarpa, who is one of the majority significant architects who worked for Venini. He was very revolutionary, and brought back the murrine technique, discovered by the Romans but again not so used until the mid-20th century. He brought color again into the glass, and he’s as well a very significant character in Italian history because he was a self-taught architect, so he wasn’t accepted at the time by the other architects, of course. But he completely changed the way of seeing buildings and glass as well.

Next World War II, Paolo Venini started to help the art direction, so he actually designed some pieces on his own. That was as well a very large success because he had additional than 25 years of experience, so with some other artists he could design something very particular, like the Incisi Collection. In the aftermath of World War II, Venini started to cooperate with the Italian government because next the war they had to rebuild all the public buildings. A lot of public buildings in Rome have been lit with Venini chandeliers since the late 1940s. And that’s at the same time as Venini started to cooperate with Gio Ponti, who was a very famous Italian architect.

Paolo Venini died in 1959, and his son-in-law and his daughter started to run the company. They ran the company until the beginning of the 1980s. They continued cooperating with external designers and architects, introducing, for example, Tapio Wirkkala and Toni Zuccheri, who designed a very significant collection for Venini, still in production, the Bestiario. The collection consists of animals made of glass—one of the majority famous collections we have.

In the 1980s, the company was bought by the Gardini and Ferruzzi families. They as well continued the cooperation with external designers. They introduced Mendini, Gae Aulenti and Ettore Sottsass. The latter was completely difficult to understand at the time. But today some of the pieces that he designed at the beginning of the 1990s are our best sellers.

Raul Gardini as well executed a very good communication campaign because he was the owner of a sailing team. So they did some very large events during the Biennale. They created Leonardo’s Horse, Il Cavallo di Leonardo, in glass, which came out from the Grand Canal in Venice in 1992 for the Biennale. So, the company was very well known. Next the death of Raul Gardini, the company was bought by Royal Scandinavia Holding, which is a group of companies from Denmark. They have brands like Kosta Boda and Boda Nova, so everything concerning glass and artifacts for interior design.

Next that my family, together with the Tabacchi family, bought the company in 2001. So we’ve run the company for 15 years. We continue with the tradition of significant collaborations and we are trying to innovate the glass as well. We started to combine new materials with the glass. We have marble, wood, and leather. In January 2016, the company was bought by the Damiani Group, which we have known for additional than 20 years because my father, Giancarlo Chimento, as well worked with Damiani before buying Venini, as he ran a jewelry company himself. He used to work with Guido, Silvia and Giorgio’s father, so we’ve known them since we were children.

One of the key trends that we’ve been discussing with Guido Damiani is rising internationalization. Is this something of interest as well for Venini in terms of the collaborations with foreign museums or designers?

Definitely. Until five or six years ago, Italy was our most significant market. Seventy % of our gain was made by the Italian market, whereas nowadays it’s completely the opposite because we have started to spread all over the world. Asia is one of our most significant markets. It’s been like that for three or four years.

It’s very significant to cooperate with foreign designers, architects, and artists; and as well to get introduced in their nations. For example, we’ve cooperated with Tadao Ando, a very famous Japanese architect, who is very well known in Japan. And this has allowed us to start cooperating with companies and agencies in the Japanese market, for example. The same happened in other nations besides the collaborations with international foundations and national museums.

Venini is kept in the majority significant permanent collections all over the world. We have pieces in New York at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art, inclunding the Victoria and Albert in London. We have a very large collection at the Shanghai Museum of Glass; we have collections in Germany, in Munich and Berlin. And we as well like to cooperate with the cultural institutions because Venini has two souls—the commercial one because, of course, it’s a company that needs to sell; but Venini as well has a cultural soul that we need to keep alive. In fact, we as well cooperate with a lot of art foundations in Italy, like the Fondazione Cini in Venice.

We have a very significant agreement with them, which will last for 10 years. We put at their disposal our archive, which is made up of 45,000 drawings, 10,000 pieces and 5,000 pictures of the completed. Each year they do an exhibition featuring one of the artists that worked for Venini. One of these exhibitions, the one featuring Carlo Scarpa, was actually displayed by the Metropolitan Museum of New York, and it remained there for six months. So, we like as well to raise awareness about the cultural side of Venini

In your international expansion, what is the role of the American market?

The American market was a very good market next the war, at the beginning of the 1950s. We’ve done a series of traveling exhibitions all over the United States with the Smithsonian Institute. So, at that time, Venini was completely well known. And in fact, next that traveling exhibition, a lot of American designers who are presently very famous, like Dale Chihuly, Richard Marquez, and so on, came to Venini to learn how to work glass.

Again in the 1970s, I have to say that it was as well a dark period for the company because there was a fire, in 1972, which actually destroyed part of the company, so the United States market went a little bit down. But presently we are starting to grow in the American market again, particularly with the lighting solutions.

We have three different types of production. Custom-made is growing very well—particularly abroad, in the United States and in Asia—because everyone wants to have their own incomparable chandelier, particularly with the lighting. We’re trying right presently to meet architects and interior designers to move ahead with this side of the company, which for us is very significant.

Again, of course, we have a lot of dealers in the United States. We are in the majority significant departments like Bergdorf Goodman and Barneys, in New York. We as well have a very significant client in Los Angeles, called Diva. We have dealers, such as Luminaire in Miami as well. We don’t have a mono-brand shop for presently, but since the United States market is growing I think that it could be a possibility.

Can tourists come visit Venini in Murano?

Definitely. Our furnace is not open to the public normally, but we can arrange tours of the furnace and the museum. We do that, of course, with groups of students from all over the world. It’s very interesting because what you see in Venini is very different from what you see in the furnaces that are open to the public, which are additional for tourists. At the same time as you go to Venice you normally just see the little horse that they make. But the production in Venini is completely different because the technique that they use to produce the horse is a completely different technique from the one that Venini uses.

We produce bigger pieces with a lot of colors and different techniques.

What does the next hold for Venini next the partnership with Damiani?

Initial of all, I have to say that I’m very happy about this partnership. As I by presently mentioned, my family and the Damiani family have been very close friends for a lot of, many years. So, this is as well an chance to start our cooperation, because if you know each other again everything comes easily. I think that Venini really needed to be part of a prestigious group as the Damiani group because together we can create amazing synergies.

What Venini needs right presently is the communication awareness that Damiani possesses all over the world. I think that the way Damiani communicates the brand can be very helpful for Venini. The perception of the brand is very, very high. Venini is a company made up of 80 people, so it’s not a very large company. Even if abroad they see us as the biggest company in Murano, the biggest name in Murano, which of course we are, we are still a family-run company. So, I think that being part of a bigger group expands our possibilities all over the world.

What is your personal dream about Venini? Where would you like to take it next?

Venini is by presently very well perceived abroad. Everywhere I go, what I hear from people is, “Oh, you’re like the Dior of lighting and vases.” So, that’s what they think about the company. And sometimes I’m as well completely surprised about that because I didn’t know that so a lot of people knew the brand, and had such a perception of the brand outside of Italy.

In Italy we are very well known. Each family in Italy has a Venini vase—it’s a tradition to give a Venini vase as a present at the same time as people get married, for example. Venini needs to concentrate separately on the two sides, the two souls that I by presently mentioned: the cultural one and the commercial one. Concerning the commercial one, I think that Venini will have a large success by focusing on the custom-made market.

Considerate local culture is key. In China, for example, it’s not reasonable to spend €800 on a vase, but maybe they can spend €200,000 for a chandelier. Custom-made and the possibility to produce different solutions will let Venini grow all over the world. We have a lot of pieces coming from the ‘40s and ‘50s, and a very significant market of collectors, which needs to be kept alive with auctions and exhibitions. On the other side, we as well have the problem of counterfeits and imitations. So, we need to raise awareness about our original pieces. In this context, and in relation to Venini’s cultural soul, we’re doing a good job cooperating with all the foundations and institutions abroad. We will definitely continue in this direction.