Braccialini

Braccialini is a 50-year-old leather accessories company based in Florence, Italy. The company operates in 40 countries with 50 mono brand stores globally

An incident where Carla’s bag was stolen inspired her to create a bag in the shape of a house and the tagline "In your handbag lies all your life" was born. The bag was well received in the market and gave Carla the opportunity to play around with her creativity and passion. Many unique shapes like the Tomato, Taxi and the Owl were created thereafter and these bags part of the Temi collection have become the image of the brand. The image of the rose forms the brand's logo because of Carla’s love for flowers. Carla has also been the recipient of the Cavaliere del Lavoro award, assigned to entrepreneurs for their valuable contribution in their chosen field of profession.

Carla and her husband Roberto Braccialini started the company in 1954 as a small workshop with 4-5 employees in Florence, Italy. Initially, she started sewing without any formal knowledge with materials such as leather and straw, making clothes and selling it in Versilia and then slowly moved to creating bags with the same materials. Carla sketched the designs and her husband crafted the bags and handled the business. The first bag was created with leather and straw, a unique choice at that time. She trained her team to learn the craft and sew with creativity and imagination. The bags had a playful mood combined with unique designs and new materials.

As the business started to take shape and grow, they were also faced with many challenges; a flood in 1966 in Florence destroyed all the fabrics and the archives and Carla with her team had to start all over with hard work and determination. Her husband’s death in 1976 was another challenging period in her career as her sons were very young.

In the 1980s, two of the Carla’s three sons Riccardo and Massimo joined the company and adopted her philosophy and carried forth her vision. In 1987 the company entered into many licensing agreements with companies like Vivienne Westwood for the production and distribution of accessories; bags, belts and small leather items. The following year in 1988 Contromano was founded a partner company and over the course of a few years Braccialini entered into licensee agreements with brands like RoccoBarocco, Fiorucci, Bagutta

In 1990, Braccialini launched the Tua collection targeted at a younger audience. Also the first Braccialini boutique was opened in Florence. However, there were some roadblocks that the brand faced during this time. This was the period of minimalistic design in fashion. Braccialini was about bold colors, mix of different materials and lots of details. The brand maintained its essence and core brand philosophy and continued to produce bags with color, fantasy and creativity. Few customers retained their loyalty and the brands strength in color, fantasy and ethnic inspirations developed further

...
Wikipedia