In Venice, traditional craftsmanship meets new forms of creativity and inclusion. The Banco Lotto N°10 project tells the story of this encounter through fashion, highlighting the quality of materials, sartorial expertise, and work as a means of building new opportunities. It is a project in which Tessitura Luigi Bevilacqua’s fabrics also help shape garments that embody a story of expertise, creative vision, and human value.
Banco Lotto N°10: Where Tailoring Meets the City
Founded within the Giudecca Women’s Prison in Venice and run by the Il Cerchio Social Cooperative, Banco Lotto N°10 is a professional fashion workshop that has been offering incarcerated women tailoring training and paid work opportunities for more than twenty years. Under the artistic direction of Margherita Uliana, the workshop creates handcrafted garments in limited editions, combining design research with meticulous workmanship and the careful selection of materials.
The women who work there are at the heart of a project in which they not only create beautiful garments but also develop skills and strengthen their professional expertise, opening up opportunities to pursue careers in the fashion industry beyond the prison walls.
Banco Lotto N°10 – Exterior (Photographer: Andrea Pattaro)
This vision also takes shape in Spaces of Dignity, Banco Lotto N°10’s new retail space in Rio Terà Sant’Aponal, near Rialto. The architectural project, designed by Alfredo Brillembourg, founder of Urban-Think Tank, and Alessandro Famiglietti, transforms the grid, traditionally associated with separation, into an open structure that welcomes garments, people, and encounters. The result is a space where architecture, fashion, and craftsmanship engage in a dialogue with the city, bringing visibility to work that would otherwise remain confined within the tailoring workshop.
Banco Lotto N°10 – Interior (Photographer: Matteo Rampin)
The quality of materials is also an integral part of this exploration. Alongside Indian silks, the collections feature Venetian fabrics by Tessitura Luigi Bevilacqua, selected for the creation of certain garments.
Banco Lotto N°10 – Interior (Photographer: Matteo Rampin)
Bevilacqua Fabrics: Material, History, and Exploration
For us, taking part in a project like Banco Lotto N°10 means seeing our textile heritage become part of a context where material quality meets a distinctive creative vision and meaningful social purpose.
Our fabrics are rooted in a Venetian manufacturing tradition that dates back to 1499. It is a history shaped by knowledge passed down through generations, meticulous craftsmanship, and a deep sensitivity to textiles, expressed through velvets and decorative fabrics made using traditional artisanal techniques.
In dialogue with Banco Lotto N°10’s tailoring workshop, these materials become part of a creative process that reinterprets them through shapes, volumes, and sartorial details.
It is precisely through the encounter between different areas of expertise that a fabric can reveal new possibilities for expression. Tradition does not remain tied to the past; it continues to evolve through the hands and ideas of those who transform it into something new.
Banco Lotto N°10 – Interior (Photographer: Andrea Pattaro)
Banco Lotto N°10 – Interior (Photographer: Andrea Pattaro)
Banco Lotto N°10 on the Venice Lido: An Encounter During the Film Festival
During the 83rd Venice International Film Festival, Banco Lotto N°10 brought its creations to the Lido with a temporary shop at Lungomare Marconi 32, next to the Palazzo del Cinema. This presence gave festivalgoers the opportunity to discover the collections and the work of the women in the tailoring workshop firsthand.
The project’s journey reached a particularly meaningful milestone on September 10 with La Valigia Fantasma (The Ghost Suitcase), the first fashion show organized inside the Giudecca Women’s Prison. The garments, including several made with fine fabrics from our own Tessitura, were modeled by the very women who had crafted them. This symbolic return to the place where everything takes shape brought not only the creations themselves into focus, but also the skills and stories of the women behind them.
We believe that the value of craftsmanship also lies in its ability to build relationships and open up new possibilities. Banco Lotto N°10 offers a tangible example of this, bringing together tailoring expertise, quality materials, and the value of work.
Spaces of Dignity – Banco Lotto N°10
Rio Terà Sant’Aponal 1160, Venice
Open year-round, Monday through Saturday, from 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.
The collections are also available online at this link.
Banco Lotto N°10 – Interior (Photographer: Matteo Rampin)
Cover photo: Andrea Pattaro – Photographer
