One of my favourite shops in Milan used to be a little hole in the wall on Via Montenapoleone. Squeezed between big luxury boutiques, it was a real jewel of a place, tiny but perfect, selling equally tiny but perfect accessories – knives, cutlery, shaving paraphernalia, plus things you never knew you needed, like scissors designed to distribute a bunch of grapes.
G Lorenzi was a hangover from a different age. It had been in the same location since 1929, when Giovanni Lorenzi (above) founded it as a specialist cutler and grinder. In those days the Italian aristocracy lived on the street and shopped for everyday items – there was a greengrocer on the street until 1970.
In the seventies, Italian fashion became big and brands started to open there – Gianfranco Ferre, Armani and Versace were the first. Then things changed in the new millennium, when international fashion brands all decided they needed a branch in Milan’s now-famous Quadrilatero della Moda.
When I visited in the mid-noughties, G Lorenzi was a lovely outlier: high quality, family owned, and although it did sell into some department stores, with a unique experience. You’d walk in for a browse and find yourself selecting between 50 different types of nail scissor, ranging from €10 to €1000. Much like Santa Maria Novella in Florence, it was a place you always made time for.
Unfortunately G Lorenzi closed in 2014, and although I saw some mentions of it online, I largely lost touch. It was only recently when we were in Milan for Unica that I stumbled across the new, bigger store.
I didn’t realise that the biggest change, though, was a hidden one: Lorenzi Milano now makes almost everything itself, and before made nothing at all.
“We used to be a trade business – my father and my uncle were wonderful at that,” says Mauro Lorenzi (below), who has led the relaunch. “They travelled the world, they sought the finest things, and then they sold to the locals. It was a great shop and I worked there for many years.” (Mauro is in the top image, alongside his grandfather Giovanni.)
“But the world was changing. The internet meant everyone could now see everything at the click of a button, for less money than we could charge, and delivered in a day or two. The only way we could survive was to become a brand – and being a brand for me means making your own things.”
Mauro’s father and uncle disagreed, and the family decided to close the shop on Montenapoleone. Mauro had been running his own manufacturing side to the business since 2010 (called CEDES) however, and now started to grow this – making everything in Milan, only using natural materials, and at first selling to department stores. This had always been his passion – he was always more likely to be in the back of the shop, making alongside a partner, rather than out front.
Soon there was e-commerce, CEDES became Lorenzi, and in 2019 the new version of the family shop was opened, on Piazza Filippo Meda. “The atmosphere in there should have a lot in common with the old shop,” Mauro says. “The attitude is the same and a lot of the products are the same. But it’s looking towards the future, rather than what we did in the past.”
When I interview Mauro, he is clearly pleased that this was the exact feeling I got. I recognised the name of the shop, it felt familiar when I went in, yet it was also clearly different. The lower-priced items, so easily undercut online, were gone, and the selection was more exotic and luxurious. But the service was excellent – everyone knew the products inside out and the family were clearly closely involved. It felt close-knit.
“We now make 80% of everything we sell,” says Mauro. “There are some things we can’t make – we can’t forge knives for example. But even when we make these with someone else, we think we improve it. Not just changing the handle or embellishing it, but improving little points of production.” That’s the workshop pictured above.
My problem with stores like this is that everything is exquisite, but I need to find something I will use. I’ve spent so many years giving in to the allure of beautiful eccentricities like shagreen pill boxes, only for them to just sit on my desk, looking at me.
Fortunately I don’t really have a good shaving kit – a razor handle, a badger-hair brush – and so I spent a good half hour in Lorenzi looking at antler and bamboo options. Fortunately for my wallet, the combination I wanted wasn’t available, but it’s definitely what I would look to in the future.
If anyone wants more information on the exotic materials, by the way, there’s a section on the Lorenzi site setting out their policy, and something on each of the product pages with slightly more specifics, eg here on horn.
Lorenzi is a lot more widely sold that it used to be. It’s sold on Mr Porter, on Abask, and does collaborations with various designer brands. I wouldn’t say the shop in Milan is quite the quirky destination store it used to be either.
But it is still worth a visit, and it must be highlighted how unusual it is to be making this level of product in-house, in somewhere like Milan. We’ll definitely be visiting the workshop next time we’re in the area.
In the meantime, you can also shop online of course, in those multibrand stores or the Lorenzi site, and I know Saman Amel is a big fan, so there’s a small collection on display in their new London showroom.
Piazza F Meda 3, Milan
