On our recent visit to Italy to develop our next Childe Eyewear collection we discovered Chioggia, the humble little sister Venetian island known as "little Venice".

Chioggia is an absolute treasure, providing a less excessive sand in your toes La Dolce Vita experience that we absolutely loved.

 

We left the chilly Aussie winter for the perfection of the Italian summer...like so many other Aussie's this year.

Italy absolutely re-confirmed itself as one of the very best place in the world for culture, food, wine and landscape.

Every day you are absolutely mind blown with how good the food is or the breathtaking architecture or the extremely welcoming local characters.

I love the Italian vibe all day every day.

We indulged on a Risotto and Prosecco bender which is the perfect recipe for creating new sunglass concepts.

 

We arrived in Milan just in time to check out the Milan Design Fair which is regarded as one of the best in the world.

We had a fun night drinking and dancing in the streets of Milan with great friends Rebeka Perez and Lisbon artist Mario Belem who helped create our brand logo when we started Childe.

As you do...

We also stayed a night in the region of Lombardy by the lake to visit one of our manufacturers and then hit the road down towards Venice stopping in the province of Treviso where we based ourselves for a week.

Treviso is the home of Prosecco which is now the worlds biggest selling wine variety. This region is where we do most of our production with the local family owned boutique optical manufacturers. Its also the perfect place to chill out, get inspired and spend time with our design and production partners to work on new eyewear and a fresh colour palette for the next season of Childe Eyewear. 

After this we had a weekend to enjoy to ourselves so Amelia and I hit the beach on a local recommendation to Chioggia or whats known as "Little Venice." 

Chioggia is a seaside town about 25km's south of Venice. It's incredible historic area has canals, narrow alleys and a fishing village culture combined with typical Venetian architecture.

This place was something very special.

Romantic to say the least with butterflies everywhere so we even named our new sunglass after this phenomenon - the Farfalle.

Riding bikes is the mode of transport which enables you to slow down to cruise mode and soak in the beachside fishing village atmosphere  and meet the locals.

Over the bridge, on an island to the east are Sottomarina beach and Forte San Felice, a 14th-century fort. We really liked the vibe at beachside Sottomarina which is many Venetians weekend getaway.

Chioggia is next level picturesque so we had some fun shooting Amelia in our current Childe sunglass collection and the new frames for 2023.

After this we squeezed in a couple days in Venice to see friends John and Esta

Venice is awesome but the hustle and bustle of tourism flooded Venice was a little overwhelming after the chilled vibe of Chioggia.

It felt so damn good to leave Australia and visit Italy again and work on new eyewear and see old and new friends.

Stay tuned for the new Childe Eyewear 2023 "Farfalle" collection

available from October.

Ciao Italia.