Once upon a time

theAtelier

The historical connection between Atelier Gallia e Peter and Milan is rooted in a tradition of excellence. Traces of this can be found in the etymology of the English term for milliner, "milliner," or "originally from Milan": a geographical origin that, since the eighteenth century, was synonymous with quality, determination, and attention to detail.

Via Montenapoleone

Housed at No. 3 Via Montenapoleone, from 1930 to 2010, the atelier was the symbolic place of a successful artisanal business built patiently with needle, thread and refined creativity.

Always conceived as a living and working space, it has long been a place of production, display, fashion shows, and sales: its magnetic street windows have for nearly a century unveiled the style and trends of handmade headdresses with Haute Couture allure. Conceived as a salon to welcome Milan's upper middle class, until World War II, the Atelier had three hundred square meters and three shop windows. Later relocated to the inner courtyard, it always maintained a street-facing storefront at No. 3 Via Montenapoleone and a workshop in the back in which to experiment with the shapes and fashions of headdresses and hairstyles made by the four generations of Gallia e Peter women (Angela Paschero, Mariuccia Gallia, Lia Giacomini and Laura Marelli).

Consisting of large halls characterized by large gilded mirrors, the Atelier preserved its artisan identity by creating shapes and supports for shaping headdresses and making handmade hairstyles using all the different professional skills present in the Atelier and specialized in the different processes (flowers, veils, felt). In the golden years of hats, the atelier counted on more than thirty collaborators among the women of the family, workers and milliners, including a "piscinina" (as the very young women who learned the trade of seamstress and milliner were called in Milan), a première (the one who translates the designer's sketch into the canvas model and tries it on the mannequins) and the historic delivery boy Giacomino, who with his bee delivered the moiré cardboard hat boxes, logos Gallia e Peter, around the city.

1980, Entrance of the Gallia e Peter atelier
in Via Montenapoleone, 3 Milan

2012, Laura Marelli with a client in the Gallia e Peter
atelier in Via Moscova, 60 Milan

2012, Laura Marelli with a client in the Gallia e Peter atelier
in Via Moscova, 60 Milano

2012, Laura Marelli at work in the Gallia e Peter
atelier in Via Moscova, 60 Milan

As hat fashion declined, in the 1960s the Atelier sold some of its spaces on Via Montenapoleone and reduced the number of workers, until the decision in 2010 by the last heir, Laura Marelli, to move the business to No. 60 Via Moscova in Milan. A vital place with a lively and pulsating creativity, the Gallia e Peter atelier has been transformed over time to respond to different commissions, holding together the intimate dimension of listening and made-to-measure design with large orders and productions of hats for the main fashion houses of the 1950s and 1960s and for the best-known Made in Italy designers in the 1980s. Today, under the direction of Laura Marelli, Gallia e Peter is transforming into a school of life and crafts, which makes custom-made headgear by preserving in its archives documents, hats and stories capable of inspiring new productions and transmitting "savoir faire" and the pleasure derived from it to new generations.

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