Bringing Beauty Home
“Beauty will save the world” (Fyodor Dostoevsky).
An architect and an otorhinolaryngologist emigrate from Italy to the American midwest and become business partners who create beautiful linens for the home.
Sound like an unlikely scenario? Not when you add God’s plan to the story.
“It was something coming from the outside of me, meeting something that was inside of me, and that was fire.”
What would become Barefoot Home began in 2020, when founder Margherita Vezzani felt a call to be creative. “I found in myself the desire and the need to find a space to express myself that went beyond motherhood,” Vezzani shared with me. “So I started to do what I used to love. My grandma used to teach me to embroider.”
A wife and mother to five, Vezzani was no longer a practicing doctor after moving from Italy to Cincinnati with her family. Connecting with her creative side led her into a community with other women who embraced her endeavors and taught her additional skills.
“Eventually, this love for fabrics, colors, and textures became the desire to learn how to sew and create using the sewing machine,” Vezzani said. “I had a wonderful group of women here in Cincinnati who taught me. When I did it the first time, I pushed the paddle of the sewing machine, and I felt something that was hard to explain. I thought, ‘I want to do this forever.’”
She further explained the moment of realization: “It was something coming from the outside of me, meeting something that was inside of me, and that was fire.”
Enter Lucia Bertaggia. An architect by trade, Lucia moved to the midwest from Italy with her family. The two met through Communion and Liberation, a Catholic movement founded by Father Luigi Giussani. Lucia and Margherita were members of the movement in Italy and continued their involvement after moving to the U.S.
Margherita looked to Lucia for her expertise in design, and Lucia had also been seeking beauty in this new chapter of her life. She explained, “Being an architect and living in Italy, you are used to beauty everywhere. I have always had this obsession with looking for beauty. So I knew there had to be something beautiful in Indiana. It’s not just parking lots and shopping malls.”
The collaboration that would become Barefoot Home had begun.
The company’s products include linens for the home: tablecloths, napkins, table runners, placemats, and their best-selling fabric baskets. Margherita remembers gifting a basket to a friend: “I gave it as a gift to a friend of mine. She’s an ICU doctor with six kids. And I just gave it to her with the homemade loaf of bread inside it, and she loved it.”
Barefoot Home designs are based on Italian art and architecture. Lucia recalls, “She (Margherita) told me, ‘I want to design patterns inspired by Italian art—in particular, the story of Matilda di Canossa.’ And I was like, ‘Wow, this is calling me.’”
Lucia explains that a lot of research goes into their designs. "I went to look into the story and at the church in the Romanesque era. I was familiar with that, but finding specific churches is highly symbolic. That was the inspiration for the creation of the pattern. Then we send the file to the company in Italy for printing on the linen."
Margherita explained how she found their textile company while traveling in Italy in the summer: “I looked all over Italy for contacts and visited factories, etc. And I found this little company that met our needs and our expectations. There’s a woman that leads the entire process.”
“The purpose … was to give them something beautiful to bring into their home.”
Their latest design was commissioned by Father Zenthoefer, Diocesan Vicar General and rector of St. Benedict Cathedral in Evansville, Indiana. At first, Margherita and Lucia thought he was asking them for an altar cloth. “He was struck by the fact that we design fabrics from architectural patterns. And he thought if we can do it from an Italian architectural pattern, we might be able to do it from the cathedral."
Margherita remembered how the priest explained his vision for the project. “The purpose was to educate the families of the diocese, first of all, to look at the beauty of the cathedral. Secondly, it was to give them something beautiful to bring into their home so when they set the table, they can remember that what happens on the altar happens at the family table.”
Lucia designed this new pattern based on the baldacchino ceiling over the altar at the St. Benedict Cathedral. She spent hours at the cathedral, taking photos and videos to capture the design.
“The artwork is based on what only the priest can see during Mass, because he’s right under it, especially during the consecration. And it’s now reworked for everybody to enjoy on their table,” she said.
For both Lucia and Margherita, Barefoot Home is about bringing beauty into the everydayness of our homes.
“I’m a mom, and we’re Italian, so we always eat together every night and every lunch if there’s more than me at home. We sit at the table and eat together, even if it’s 15 minutes," Margherita said.
Lucia echoed her: “Looking at the family life, I thought there has to be beauty here, especially in how you live in the house. When you set the table, there can be a moment of creativity and beauty.”
“Women can do really powerful things.”
It’s also about the community of women they’re encountering.
“I met this seamstress,” Margherita recalled. “She’s from Italy. She’s 70, and she’s a widow. So we started to talk, and now she’s one of my best friends here. We talk about fabrics and how things should be done. She opened her house, her heart, and her knowledge to me and it’s so enriching. And I think this is just the beginning.”
Margherita’s dream is to have a collaborative space for women to bring their creativity to life: “My desire is to meet so many other women, because it’s not just sewing. It’s becoming more, and we need other collaborations. I can’t wait to create this space to work that is healthy for women. We know how it is; it’s hard, but we know we can do it. Because women can do really powerful things.”
Cathi Kennedy is passionate about building relationships. At the University of Notre Dame, she advises graduate students for the Mendoza College of Business. Her background is in marketing and communications, and she recently received her MBA. Impassioned writer, voracious reader, aspiring knitter. Married to a musician and mom to two amazing sons. Cathi is a convert to Catholicism and seeks to learn something new about her faith every day. Connect with Cathi: LinkedIn • Instagram • Facebook • Blog