Barena Venezia, a small, family-owned company has significantly influenced the way men and women dress in and outside of Italy over the past twenty-seven years. Before “sprezzatura” and “soft tailoring” became go-to terms for fashion editors, Barena was showing men how to dress casually and with class utilizing sartorial fabrics for rather sporty, workwear garments. Barena maintains the fabric-first ethos it was founded upon. “The main concept comes from the past, in the 19th century where the workwear dress code was:‘elegance even when we are working the land.’ In fact countrymen were working the land wearing three-piece suits: blazer, pants and a vest called a “panciotto,’” Francesca Zara said. “I find it difficult to characterize the collection any more than that: it’s not sporty, not classic, not casual it’s a mix of all of them,” Pigozzo said.
