The famous Italian brand Baldinini started somewhere in the San Mauro Pascoli area on Italy’s Adriatic coast in 1910. As it is with many shoemakers, their beginning was humble – a small family workshop that had an adjoining sales shoppe.
With each succeeding generation, the business flourished. Starting with making shoes for their neighbors, a flourishing small business later extended throughout Italy. During the 1970s, the family business was in the hands of grandson Gimmi Baldinini, who represented the family’s third generation and who turned the name Baldinini into a brand famous worldwide in fashion footwear.
The Baldinini shoes are known to have very high quality standards marked with original design. Baldinini boasts a solid reputation and is popular among respectable celebrities. Baldinini’s footwear was worn by Princess Diana, Federico Fellini and Michelangelo Antonioni. By the way, Antonioni personally drew outlines for his shoe models. Baldinini’s shoes are known for quality leather and handwork, producing 500 pairs of shoes per day. Some items from their latest collection can easily be found at the newly opened boutique Baldinini in the Caravan shopping center. The classic and more democratic Trend lines are presented there. The women’s collections are very fashionable – embroidered, painted, tooled and rich with decorations and metalized finish. For instance, enameled leather shoes and boots will cost you from Hr 3,000 and higher. The men’s footwear collection reflects the same concept as the women’s, expressing Italian avant-garde style with traditional elegance. There is a selection of the most original hides – brushed calfskin, kid, kangaroo, reptile and deer which are painstakingly designed from lace-ups to formal chic and urban leisure styles, with moccasin-style mules and boots in a range from Hr 3,000 and more. Baldini’s Trend line is an alternative for those, looking for more functional footwear for daily use or travel. In addition, you’ll find all the necessary accessorizes from leather belts (from Hr 600) to hand bags (Hr 6,000).
Bellis
Europeans know Bellis for its elegantly stylish and reasonably priced jewelry. Company owners buy sketches of jeweler lines from well-known fashion designers such as Kenzo, Nina Ricci, Bulgary and Cartier. Bellis’s designers try to convert all this high-priced beauty to a work of art more of us can afford. Instead of gold and platinum, there is silver and gilding. Instead of diamonds, topazes and sapphires – colored zircon, turquoise and artificial pearls. They offer plenty of jewelry with colored enamel and malachite, a black-and-white collection of rings and earrings with Swarovski crystals, which only a real professional could distinguish from diamonds. Their zircon’s faceting is processed the same way as diamonds, so they sparkle like precious stones. New collections are updated four times per year. And every collection is divided into twelve mini-collections. If you are tired of banal floristic and animals themes in jeweler’s designs you definitely will find something dear to your heart at Bellis. The prices begin at Hr 150. You could purchase lovely earrings in the form of crystal drops for only Hr 180. Among the most expensive jewelry are rings with malachite for Hr 1610 and massive earrings with is gentle-lemon zircons for Hr 1,250. What’s more, they’ve have a website, where you easily can explore all their latest collections and place an order on delivery.
Baldinini (12 Luhova, Caravan shopping center, 206-4387). Free marshrutka shuttles run between Karavan and Petrivka, Obolon and Minska metro stations
Bellis (2/1 Grinchenko, 278-5464). www.bellis-fashion.com.ua
