Marina Rizzini
The story of Bice & Berta tailored knitwear, at Torre Boldone, a few kilometres from Bergamo, is a woollen strand running through the decades and binding the hearts of extraordinary women, born and raised at different times and united by the same passion.
A passion that drove Marina Rizzini to found this workshop and atelier over 27 years ago, and to make it a special place that takes the soft and bespoke dreams of her customers and turns them into perfect garments to wear. Her interest in yarn and clothing was roused by her aunt Bice, an accomplished seamstress who used to seat her on the table of her tiny workshop when she was a child and teach her to crochet, embroider and knit, making colourful little dresses for her dolls.
On quiet evenings at home in the small town in the Val Brembana where she grew up, her mother Marì showed her instead how to make clothes for herself, inspired by the forms and colours she saw in glossy magazines.
As a grownup Marina found herself working for several years in the offices of a fuel company, but her passion, which had never faded, suggested a different future.
Following the birth of her daughters Greta Bice (named after her aunt) and Camilla Berta (after a great grandmother who used to spin), Marina Rizzini gave it all up to do what she really wanted: it was in 1992 that she set up a knitting workshop in Bergamo, where she made bespoke garments by hand or with hand-cranked flat-bed knitting machines from the early 20th century, always using materials of the highest quality.
In 1998, with the support of her husband Marco and encouraged by the numerous orders that were coming in, she acquired a larger workshop at Torre Boldone, where she founded the brand she called Bice & Berta, after her daughters, as well as her aunt and great grandmother. Thus all of the family’s passion for knitwear and the clothing was condensed in an entrepreneurial project, fruit of a family gynaeceum that has been able to hand down its skills and passions from generation to generation, the precious heritage of Marina Rizzini and of her talented and enterprising daughter Camilla Calderoli as well, who now works with her.
Over the years Marina Rizzini has succeeded in making a name for herself abroad too, thanks to the quality of her products, which today are exported to France, Great Britain, Switzerland and Japan.
Her clients can choose the yarn and colour and customize the models to suit their own taste and needs, while counting on absolutely flawless and exclusive quality.
