Entering Loretta Caponi’s boutique in Borgo Ognissanti in Florence is a journey back in time. The frescoed vaults, the varnished parquet, the scent of new linens on the shelves. It is a moment of happy disorientation, a return to the atmosphere of the late Sixties, when it was still customary to make a trousseau for brides to be. In the dowry trunk, there had to be sheets, towels, embroidered tablecloths, but also a sexy nightgown and lingerie for the wedding night. It was a romantic world, and clients arrived with the excitement and dreams of a new life. Loretta Caponi’s embroideries were the most beautiful in town. She learned to embroider from the nuns, but hated it and managed to make a job of it, taking care only of the patterns and designs, which she then commissioned from more experienced hands.
Since 1967, when the business began, things have changed a lot. The store on Via delle Belle Donne was opened in 1992, but at Loretta Caponi’s you can still breathe that air of yesteryear although each piece can be perfectly imagined in an elegant home today. They are authentic pieces of art made with the “spolvero” technique, as was done in the Renaissance. You draw the design on a sheet of glossy paper, place it on the fabric and wipe over it with a sponge soaked in a blue substance that transfers the tracing to the linen. This is the preparation for embroidering sea backdrops, flower gardens, and bucolic views inspired by 15th-century frescoes.
Today in the store is Lucia Caponi, Loretta’s daughter, who designs the new collections and guards the immense archive of 20,000 designs and hundreds of pieces of vintage linens and dresses, with which she dreams of one day making a museum, still there, in the hidden spaces of the large store. Behind the scenes of this ancient world, among shelves full of offcuts, boxes and rolls of fabrics, spools of colored threads and paper patterns, they work with the same patience as in the past: to make a tablecloth takes four people and a minimum of a month and a half. By now they have an online catalogue and a successful shop in Harrods in London. But walking into the store, touching those thick embroideries, checking the perfect underside, peeking through photos from years past, trying on the latest timeless collection of dresses and lingerie, talking to Lucia or her son is a whole different story. Better yet it’s a journey through history.