Florence is a fascinating city, where history speaks from every stone of its magnificent churches and noble palazzos. It’s a place of stylish traditions rooted in an appreciation of beauty and high-end, exquisite crafts. Florentine artisans balance finesse and splendor, which is, in a nutshell, what the Renaissance was actually about. Craftsmanship is regarded here as an art form.
Loretta Caponi is one of the historical Florentine botteghe (little artisanal ateliers, often family-run and centuries old), located in a romantic frescoed space in the city’s old center, where time seems to have stopped. It has provided exquisite handmade lingerie and household linens to generations of the Florentine upper classes and to the international aristocracy for almost a century. A legendary lady, Loretta Caponi passed away at 91 in 2015; now the baton is in the hands of her daughter Lucia, who oversees design, and Lucia’s son Guido Conti Caponi, who has impressive business and strategic acumen. The duo are bringing the label into the future while protecting its historical legacy. They just launched their first Resort collection of delightful floral day dresses and separates, inspired by Caponi’s famously coveted handmade nightgowns. Vogue sat down with Guido and Signora Lucia over coffee and pastries in their beautiful atelier, where Lucia told us about their family history and plans for the future.
A Florentine art and crafts family
“My mother Loretta was born in 1924; as was customary at that time, she was sent as a kid to the nuns, from whom she learned the art of embroidery at the age of eight. She had a real talent for it; at 14 she was commissioned for her very first work. She was a very smart, curious, modern woman; she married very young my father Dino, who was a painter. During the ’60s and the ’70s, his atelier became an epicenter for Florence’s cultural life, with writers, intellectuals, and artists visiting regularly for evenings of debates and discussions over my mother’s delicious spaghetti al pomodoro.
“At 18, she had her first child. It was a very tough time in Italy, because of the Second World War; to make ends meet, being extremely good and creative at fine embroidery, she started making beautifully handmade lingerie and household linens. Soon her nightgowns, brassières, and slip dresses were coveted by the cultivated, classy Florentines. She loved to tell me this story: One of her clients, a very elegant aristocratic lady, used to travel often to Paris by train, carrying a few of my mother’s satin bras and culottes hidden in her luxurious mink muff. Once in Paris, they were sold to the lady’s clique of chic French dames. This ‘trick’ continued with great success, so much so that my mother could buy herself a tiny apartment in Florence. At that time, she worked at home with her sister; in the ’50s, she also traveled often to Rome, expanding her clientele in a cultivated milieu of aristocrats, intellectuals, and artists. Their children and grandchildren are still our customers today.
“In 1967, after the terrible flood that almost destroyed Florence, my mother rented a tiny shop in Borgo Ognissanti, in the city’s old center. It was so small, the space in the window allowed for just one mannequin! But on that only mannequin, she displayed a new, rather revolutionary creation: A nightgown in cotton or flannel printed with delicate florals, hand-embroidered with a so-called ‘smock’ motif (a sort of honeycomb-shaped cross-stitching) at the neck and sleeves. It was chaste, almost touching in its ingenuity, modest but also funny, a bit tongue-in-cheek. My mother took inspiration from the delightful dresses she was making for her clients’ little girls, almost reproducing them in larger sizes. Those nightgowns weren’t following the trends then in vogue, in that during the ’70s, lingerie was mostly made of new synthetic fibers like nylon: it was see-through, sexy, rather cheap and highly inflammable! Otherwise, fashion pointed toward the hyper-seductive, Hollywood-femme-fatale style of glamorous nightgowns and robes de chambre, made in luscious satin and heavily encrusted with lace. Our nightgowns were the exact opposite. I’m not afraid to say that they were feminist nightgowns! It’s something a woman can wear not to please a man but to feel comfortable. They’re not revealing so they make you feel at ease, relaxed, protected. They can be worn by women with different body types. They’re also quite amusing in their modesty, and very feminine. My clients’ ravishing daughters started wearing them as everyday dresses or for going to parties, off-the-shoulder and belted, with flat sandals or high heels or boots. Now wearing modest nighties as everyday dresses is becoming a trend, but Florentine girls have done it for quite a long time, raiding their mothers’ closets, and their daughters will certainly do the same. Our nightgowns are passed down over generations; they become family heirlooms.”
Our fabulous clients
“In our family, there has always been a very strict code of discretion and respect for our clients. The Florentine spirit is actually rather reserved. We hate to show off and peacock around. We have an appreciation for a balanced sense of style, good proportions, beautiful finishes, a bit of a worn-out, passed-down look—much like our Renaissance palazzos. We’re a bit snobbish, really. And we don’t like to name names. In our shop’s record books there are the most incredible names, all the reigning families of Europe, the Windsors, the house of Orange-Nassau, the Bourbons. The young royals, from the princesses of York to the Casiraghis, they all wear our nightgowns, our linen pajamas or velvet robes de chambre. And all the Middle East princesses are crazy about our made-to-measure handmade household linens: The daughter of an emir once ordered a 60-meter-long tablecloth, fully embroidered with flying pink flamingos. It was quite a nightmare to make it! Now the Chinese are also coming, with the most extravagant requests. We had a cashmere blanket embroidered with the clients’ four dogs, or bathrobes with the embroidered portrait of each family member.
“Hollywood also loves what we do: Sharon Stone and Jane Fonda are regulars, as well as Nicole Kidman. And we did Madonna’s newborn son Rocco’s layette. When Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson visit Florence, they come to see us; Amal Clooney’s mother buys little dresses for the twins. Mika is an enthusiast of our pajamas. Ginevra Elkann has chosen our nightgowns for her first movie, Magari. The silk pajama worn by Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs was made by us. He said that our shop was “the finest of all Italy.” How gracious of him! And also Kennedys, Rothschilds, Rockefellers, Gettys—I’m afraid the list would become rather conspicuous.”
Our first Resort collection
“Recently, a couple of our longtime customers, Belma Gaudio and Amanda Brooks, opened their shops and asked us to make small quantities of the classic smock nightgowns they were already buying for themselves, wearing them also as dresses. It was an instant success; sales went extremely well. Then Moda Operandi and Matches came, so we decided to organically expand a line of dresses and separates inspired by our famous nightgowns into a more structured and well-edited collection. I personally oversee the design. Every item is hand-embroidered by skilled artisans in an atelier in Tuscany that works exclusively for us. We use a fluid, smooth type of cotton or cotton piqué, printed in small floral motifs from our archives. This project is actually a cultural challenge for us: We want to keep traditions that are disappearing alive and thriving, bringing them into the future. As for our cherished heritage and our custom-made approach, we certainly do not want to disrupt it—it’s what makes us truly unique and nonpareil. After all, Florence is an extraordinary place, and Florentines will always love being different.”