EX CORDE IN MANIBUS
From the heart, into the hands
The Time of Making
Steam rises from the felt, saturating the air of the atelier. Hands move across the wooden block, impressing invisible curves that will become a hat. The gesture repeats a thousand times, yet it is never the same: at each pass the material resists, yields, bends. It is in that suspended instant, between breath and the pressure of fingers, that every creation begins.
Around it, everything is rhythm and concentration. Light filters through the windows onto the workbench, bounces off the metal of the tools, and rests on the fabrics laid out. You hear the hiss of the hot iron, the steady beat of the small hammer, the rustle of silk slipping through fingers. Even silence has a sound: that of patience accompanying every gesture. No machine can replace this ancient dance—only a body in dialogue with matter until it is transformed.
“Every piece is born from a slow time, from listening to the materials.”
Two Sisters, One Vocation
We are Barbara and Silvia, sisters from Turin and companions on a shared path. Our story was born from the desire to preserve and reinvent the tradition of Italian millinery.
Since childhood, we have been surrounded by fabrics, needles, and buttons: simple objects that carried the beauty of gestures repeated with patience. We remember our grandmother teaching us how to thread a needle, the sound of our mother’s sewing machine, the pleasure of touching fabrics that smelled of home. From those everyday gestures sprouted an idea of craftsmanship as time, intimacy, and relationship.
Barbara: I have always had a special bond with hats. I wore them already as a girl, not as an affectation but as part of me. Over time, the desire to wear them turned into the need to create them. I attended courses in Europe: I learned to shape felt on wooden blocks, to craft headbands, to make fabric flowers, molded and pressed petal by petal. Each lesson became a piece of my creative vocabulary.
Silvia: My passion has always been for details. For me, the accessory is not a complement, but the heart that completes the whole. I began experimenting with crochet and sewing, mixing fine threads, lurex, tulle, and crystals to create chokers, headbands, and jewel hairbands. I always think about proportions, contrasts, finishes—everything that makes an object feel close to the person who wears it.
Our atelier was born with a promise: Ex corde in manibus – from the heart, into the hands. It was not a choice dictated by the market, but a vocation.
Creation & Method
Every hat is born from a slow process, made of attentiveness and precision. Felt is dampened and shaped with steam, fixed on antique wooden and aluminum blocks, preserved as tools of memory. Straw demands patience: it is softened, molded, allowed to rest before receiving its final form.
Fascinators are light micro-architectures. Bases of sinamay or fine felt are fixed onto invisible headbands, giving stability to elements that seem suspended. Flowers of silk or organza, hand-dyed and hot-shaped, enrich the ensemble: each petal is unique, the result of a process that admits no shortcuts.
In accessories, technique meets research. For chokers, we crochet lurex yarns with tulle and lace, working with fine gauges for definition and stability. For headbands and hairpieces, we design reinforced bases, hand-finished, sometimes integrated with jewel bands. In small capes, microfibers and faux fur create soft, clean volumes.
Experimentation is our rule. We love to unite traditional materials with unexpected elements: lurex that captures light, crochet woven like filigree, organza that moves with the air. Every choice is born of attempts, errors, new possibilities.
Choosing this path also means embracing slowness and imperfection. There are days when the material does not respond, when a flower must be remade, a hem undone and resewn. But it is precisely in those pauses, in those failures, that the sense of craftsmanship lies: the time spent trying again, the patience of going back in order to move forward.
No piece is serial. Every fold, every stitch is an invisible signature, the traces of the hands that created it.
The Silent Identity
We live in a world where luxury is often reduced to a logo. We choose the opposite: intimacy. Our creations do not claim an identity: they guard it.
We believe that a hat or an accessory is not a sign to flaunt, but a fragment of life. A gesture that accompanies, not declares. A presence that is felt in the detail, not in the noise.
For us, silence is a form of authentic luxury. It means choosing substance over visibility, truth over hype. In an age where everything moves fast and everything is replicable, the slow, unrepeatable gesture of the hands becomes an act of resistance.
“Coral of the Deep”
Presented at the Genoa Boat Show, the hat “Coral of the Deep” represents our encounter of tradition and innovation.
It is born in handwoven Ecuadorian straw, in an ivory shade that captures light with natural elegance. Its form takes life from an aluminum mold: a solid, harmonious structure that sustains the lightness of the material.
The brim is an embroidery of the sea: crocheted with tiffany lurex thread, following the “coral” technique, transforming the line into an organic landscape, vibrant like a seabed. The cord is not a simple closure, but a jewel: it ends with pearls and tiffany crystals, small drops of suspended light that dialogue with the weave.
This Panama does not conceal, but reveals. It does not merely adorn, but tells: an homage to travel, to tradition capable of navigating toward the future.
Turin as Root
Every time we open the door of our atelier, we rediscover the link between past and present: the scent of fabrics, the warmth of steam, the sound of tools. Traces of a time that never ceases to accompany us.
Turin is an integral part of our work. It is here that Italian millinery found one of its roots, and it is here that we continue to cultivate it. The city has taught us sobriety, discreet elegance, the importance of measure.
We think of the arcades of Via Po, with their arches marking the rhythm of each step; of the baroque geometries of Palazzo Carignano, teaching how volume can be movement; of the light on the Murazzi by the Po, able to reflect on curves and shadows with delicacy. Every architectural detail becomes inspiration: essential lines, measured proportions, silent harmony.
This visual memory lives within our hats. We do not see the place as backdrop, but as a living root that nourishes every creation.
“Turin is not just a place: it is root, memory, and inspiration.”
Our Promise
Founding an independent brand today is an act of courage. Every day we must reaffirm our voice amid the noise of giants. But we choose another path: to leave a silent, lasting mark.
Our pledge is simple: to continue creating accessories that are not mere ornaments, but guardians of emotions and identities. Objects that do not fade, but remain, transforming together with those who wear them.
We look to the future with the will to pass on this knowledge. We want millinery not to remain a trade for the few, but to return as a living language, taught and shared. We imagine open workshops, moments of training for young people who wish to discover the patience and freedom of working with their hands.
“From the heart through the hands”: this is our promise, this is our signature.
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