HI! Handmade Italia: Etsy presents.. Etsy Italiano!

[versione italiana]

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Open Design Italia is an international exhibition-market dedicated to self-production. We couldn’t find a better occasion to introduce Etsy Italiano to the world than this one, while being among designers, creatives and thinkers.

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Open Design Italia was hosted by Venezia 2019, the european culture forum (twinned with Berlin), and took place in the magical atmosphere of Venice, from November 23rd to 25th.
There were about 70 designers and self producers from all over the world, 8 important judges to evaluate their works, 5 interesting awards (offered by: Ottagono, Garage Design and Open Design Italia) who went to 5 talented winners.
But ODI hasn’t been just that! It was, for us, an exhibition of ideas, young talents willing to conquer the world, and a chance to establish new collaborations.

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Etsy was a main partner to the event and it had a special space dedicated, a space we prepared with flyers and merchandise sent by the Brooklyn offices, pencils sent by the Berlin one and brochures and pins from EIT, and, of course, a notebook always open on the Etsy website pages, where curious could browse and discover the Etsy world. The info point was populated by the volunteers from Etsy Italia Team, who for three days took the chance to tell to visitors about the philosophy of the best handmade selling platform in the world.

Beside the exhibition-market there was a busy program of panels about self-production, and we want to tell you about the one we attended on the last day (Nov. 25th): Self-production, selling platforms and distribution. Here below there’s the list of the speakers we listened to:
- David Dolcini - designer and creator of Designeyed
- Maurizio Bazzano - CEO of Torino Lab
- Andrea Cattabriga - Co-founder of Slowd (which speech we liked a lot)
- Claudia Pignatale - Founder of the gallery Secondome.eu
- Antonia Karaisl - Localization manager at Etsy (!!!)
- Alessandro Molinari - co-creator of Garagedesign
- Elena Santi e Laura Succini - Founders of Open Design Italia
- Marco Bettiol - Researcher of Economy and management, Department of Economics and Business, Padoa University
(the panel was moderated by the journalist Valentina Croci)

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What struck us and made us so enthusiasts about the event, was the people's feedback, because almost all were very interested and curious about what we told them about Etsy world. Many of the designers who were exhibiting in there came to the infopoint asking about how to open a shop, and so many among the visitors wanted to tell us their stories, revealing to be very creative even if, when asked “are you a creative or a designer?” they had answered with a shy “nope”.
A few of them already knew the website and many were so happy to find it was in Italian; there were really a tiny bunch of skeptics, totally less than expected.
Others, - some of them with notorious names - came by and, charmed by Etsy, proposed us to collaborate and left us their contacts.

We came back home enriched from the great experience and, above all, with the smile on our faces knowing that our efforts paid back, that all the hard work on making people aware of the handmade world is going on the right way. Italy is discovering again its origins and discovering the new craftmanships and self-productions, thanks to new technologies and internet.
Yes, we are ready for Etsy!

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And now we want to say a few thank you’s :) thanks to the italian community for believing in the made in Italy, in the team and believing that, together, we could reach our aims; thanks to Etsy for seeing the potential in us and gave us the chance to emerge; thanks to the amazing Translating team that made possible to have Etsy in Italian, and thank you to Elena and Alan of Open Design for letting us involved in this project.

A special thank you goes to the EIT members that gave their time for this project and made this experience a special one:
- Alessia from knittingcate.etsy.com
- Antonella from altmeansold.etsy.com
- Francesca from etherealflowers.etsy.com
- Ilaria from gasometri.etsy.com
- Irene from infire.etsy.com
- Irene from ireneagh.etsy.com
- Milena from lorendesign.etsy.com
- Silvia from cloudnumbernine.etsy.com

And obviously... a special thank you from the bottom of our heart to Antonia, Localization Manager at Etsy Berlin, because without her, any of this couldn’t happen!