Meet Niccolo Giannini, the Tuscan born creative behind the emerging new bag brand, Nico Giani. After winning the accessories category for Vogue’s Who is on Next? in 2017, the Florence-based designer let us in on his inspirations and future plans.
Tell us about yourself, where did you grow up? Were you into fashion as a child?
As a child, I was surrounded by fashion magazines such as Vogue, Elle, Marie Claire… My father was an accessories designer, I guess you can say working in the fashion industry was almost unavoidable. I grew up in Tuscany, a territory that is known for producing leather.
How did you decide to become a bag designer?
I am in love with objects, I am a serial collector and accumulator of things. I studied fashion design and pattern making for clothing, but when I started my professional career I gravitated towards objects, accessories and shapes.
Can you tell us about your creative process?
It’s like a protocol that I repeat every time. The first phase is about gathering information that leads me to generate an idea, generally this idea comes about in the most unexpected moments. Later, I try to develop a three-dimensional shape…. (this all happens in my imagination). Once this step is completed, I can develop a real and defined form.
What is the first bag you created?
A square with a triangle above, my teachers thought it was a small house.
Which is your favorite bag in the collection?
The Frerea bag, I was inspired by a telescope I found in Paris from the end of the 19th century. The bag for me is like a bridge connecting a part of my past to today’s collections.
I read you are inspired by 50s and 60s interior design. Can you elaborate on that?
The objects created between the 50s and the 60s have a unique energy linked to an unrepeatable past, they give off a sense of ever-present aesthetic freedom. Pieces like the Lady armchair, the Superleggera chair and the Smeg refrigerator have a perfect synthesis of shapes, lines, surfaces and colors, for me they are an inexhaustible source of inspiration
Where are your bags made?
In Tuscany.
Who is the Nico Giani customer?
A dynamic, current woman who has a small streak of nostalgia… a woman who looks to the conscious future of the past.
Where do you see the Nico Giani label in the future?
It’s a daily question for me and every time the answer is enriched with details: I imagine a world that goes beyond the single object, I work every day to present a Nico Giani total-look in the future.
If you could give a quote to the Nico Giani label, what would it be?
Thinking of Nico Giani I would quote from Fellini, “The only true realist is the visionary”.
If you weren’t designing bags, what would you be doing?
I would have ventured into something culinary related.
Do you have any other creative outlets?
If I had time I would like to have a garden, but I do not have time right now…
Who would you love to see carrying one of your bags, dead or alive?
Jane Birkin, she is a timeless icon.
Special thanks to Niccolò Giannini
