Floating on the steps, hovering in the air, lining clothes: feathers are everywhere at Mazzanti Piume’s HQ near Rifredi train station, but third-generation owner Duccio Mazzanti doesn’t resemble an eiderdown. On the contrary, his youthful energy, boundless creativity and fervent work ethic keep him feather-free around the office. Having sported one of his creations at a recent party (thanks Xin Ge Liu!), Duccio greets me warmly to his practical premises.
Downstairs, two employees are busy lining turkey and ostrich feathers into a wooden plank pronged with combs to keep the plumes magnetically secure before sewing three lengths together with a sturdy cord to make a four metre-long boa. A tug at the unfinished accessory reveals the strength of the central rachis. The device was invented by Duccio’s grandfather, who moved the business from its original via Faenza premises in the early Seventies. “We’re not really artisans,” says Duccio, as he fixes a bobbin. “We’re an industria.”
The company was founded by Duccio’s nonna, Natalina, in 1935 to make floral embellishments for ladies’ hats. “She must have been a visionary, certainly a tough woman to start a business after World War I. Sadly, we never met because she died in her sixties.” Nowadays, the factory-over-artisan concept comes from the figures: in 2023, Mazzanti produced 16,000 metres of feather boa compared to their usual 3,000 based on the expansion needs of a fashion designer. From the sewing room, the raw boas are moved into the adjacent space, where the feathers are boiled with synthetic pigments at 72 degrees Celsius before being dried with a centrifuge, run-of-the-mill hairdryers and hung on a line to be trimmed to length. The next step involves another of nonno’s inventions, a machine on which the boas are strung before being rotated and steamed, which softens the middle mast. The final touch comes in the form of a wooden fluffer to take away any bumps, which Duccio crafted by hand when he was just 13.
ph. @marcobadiani
ph. @marcobadiani
Where do Mazzanti’s feathers come from? “Ostrich plumes mainly come from South Africa, where the feather industry has changed a lot in the last 15-20 years due to avian flu, Covid and financial turmoil there.” I learn that ostrich feathers are customarily plucked from the live bird, inches away from the skin so as not to harm them (“just like sheep shearing”), although a recent demand for ostrich leather means that the birds are killed around six months old when the flesh is premium, meaning that the feathers are not fully developed in terms of length and strength. What about turkeys? “Turkeys are Thanksgiving in the United States! There’s no problem there. In about seven minutes, they kill what the entire market uses in a whole year.”
Stroking a feather, Duccio shows me some natural magic. “The smart thing is that they have some kind of ‘velcro’ inside, so you can just stroke them when they break apart and gradually they become intact again. That’s what we see birds doing on trees. As well as removing bugs and other bits, they are fixing their feathers in order to be able to be as aerodynamic as possible.”
ph. @marcobadiani
ph. @marcobadiani
Upstairs, Duccio draws back one drape after another to reveal an archive of feather creations: masks, headdresses (part of Mazzanti’s Nanà Firenze brand, out of respect for nonna Natalina’s original endeavours), wings, cloaks, dresses designed for renowned fashion houses and A-lister celebrities, and even the characteristic plumage of the Swiss Guard. “We make things that don’t exist,” he remarks, while holding a feather-covered motorbike helmet.
Feathers might weigh in at a thousand euro per kilo, but the old expression “light as a feather” is worth its weight in gold. Or, as Duccio puts it, “I buy by weight, but sell by the unit. It makes all the difference!”
