SOAPOPERA MEETS ATELIER VM

ATELIER VM OPENS ITS SECOND STORE IN MILAN TO CELEBRATE ITS 20TH ANNIVERSARY.

Not every anniversary celebrates a marriage, there are some which celebrate even something more important: a romance between two strong women who for over 20 years created their jewellery brand and grow it successfully. Women sometimes simply do it better, if we may so so, and here’s the proof.

As the about section in their website recites: “Alchemy is the power of transforming something into another form”.
Viola and Marta really transformed jewellery into chemistry, making the pieces change on us and live with their owners. 

I interviewed Viola, one of the founders, who talked to us about atelier VM and its new opening in Milano.

A desire to focus everyday more on details and spending time doing what we love the most.

*
*
*

Amanda. How was the desire to create this new store born?
Viola. We were looking for a second store in the Brera area, which has always been the artists’ quarter in Milan.
We were enchanted by this little iridescent shop full of light, set between the Church of the Incoronata and the skyscrapers of the Porta Nuova district.
It shined like a spearhead!

Amanda. How was the material research developed ? Did you immediately find an architecture studio understanding your vision?
Viola. The shop was a square with very high ceilings and exposed beams, we decided to start by enhancing the floor by laying an old, very dark, unpolished mahogany parquet and we treated the walls with Venetian marmorino, one of our favorite color -pale pink- with a peach like tone inside, an absolutely feminine color. The search for the concept was long, we wanted to renew our image, to grow consistently what for us represents our brand, to conserve and redesign the ideas of 20 years of work.
The architect Davide Agrati, one of the founders of the CLS architects studio, is also a close friend.
Attracted by their taste and their experience in luxury, we found a good understanding and a team closely related to us.

Amanda. Tell me a bit about the customer journey in the small space ideally. How would he move and interact with the objects present in the shop?
Viola. The project informs the customer through the materials, colours, lights and furniture that the place is collected and intimate, that there will be time to devote to the pleasant gesture of buying a jewel.
The marble used in the store has 5 different shades: green, pink, honey, burgundy and blue; in its elegance and classicism the perception of its long duration is immediate.
The central piece of furniture is an oval table without corners- which in a small environment would have been inappropriate.
An imposing slab of marble, about 2 meters, occupies the view and the heart, a pink Portugal color on which the jewels are resting.  The edge that contains it is a solid oak and the legs are in waxed black iron, they almost seem to disappear despite their presence. The table hides the surprise of the drawers, containing the collections.
Organised with dividers which immediately convey a sense of order, our goal was to be able to maintain a minimal floor and create amazement in the opening of the drawers rich and full of treasures.
The female imaginary is fully satisfied.

Amanda. …And what would she/he bring with her/him after he exited the store?
Viola. Probably the Essential Bracelet, our core product, a gold thread welded with a laser machine directly on the wrist.
The machine is placed on a slab of blue sodalite, while the gold thread chain used for the bracelet is presented in the three variants: yellow, white, pink and in the 4 different chain thicknesses.
The chains are exposed in bobbins attached to the large mirror, coming down like coloured ribbons in the old “mercerie”, attracting the customers in color and tact.

Amanda. In a world overwhelmed with accessories of any kind and make, how is your product still differentiating?
Viola. The Atelier VM project is sincerely built with care in all its phases, exudes good intentions, poetry, sobriety, magic, character in spite of and beyond its lightness.

Amanda. Where’s the romance in 2018?
Viola. In 2018, 20 years of celebration between us.
We founded our company in 1998 and we have crowned this date with the opening of our second store in Milan and the corner inside Liberty London, always studied with CLS architects.
Our romantic dream is that women continue to wear satisfied our Italian design and the poetry with which we imagined it.

Amanda. What are your goals for the upcoming year?
Viola. We think of many things.. among which we would like to open an online store by creating a site that conveys the style that is breathed in our stores.

Amanda. About the art piece present in store. How was this “collaboration” initiated?
Viola. The collaboration with the artists Goldschmied and Chiari is also of long standing. For a long time they wanted to have in our shop one of their projects Untitled View, a mirror on which is fixed a photo shoot that portrays combinations of smoke bombs made to flare in the studio in clouds of colours.
The shadows in which they are mirrored are extremely pictorial and give the environment the feeling of being suspended.

Amanda. Soundtrack to listen to all year long.
Viola. All music if everyone feels it vibrates within.

Amanda. A Milanese small guided tour.
Viola. Some historical Milanese trattorias, trattoria of Trebbia, La Libera, El Matarel, La Torre di Pisa, the Pescatore and others … where to drink good wine and eat when it’s time to do it for good!
Dry for Newyorkese aperitif or the bistro Sixieme.
Shopping at Eataly brings joy and it becomes fun to do together. The Osaka restaurant for lunch is a pleasant moment.

*
*
*

In the first picture Viola and Marta by Sara Goldschmied.
All the images courtesy of Atelier VM by Francesco Nazardo.
Words and translation by Amanda Luna Ballerini.

Meet Atelier Vm here!