MILAN — Designer Luca Nichetto was born and grew up on the glass-making island of Murano, around the kiln and immersed in ancient traditions. His grandfather made Venetian glass chandeliers and his mother was a glass decorator. Later he would go on to open his own design studio, first in Venice and later also in Stockholm, where he’s now raising his family.
In May 2025, life took him full circle and maybe it was written in his destiny. He was appointed art director of Barovier&Toso, the Murano glass lighting company originally founded in 1295. To put things into perspective, their business began just 24 years after explorer Marco Polo set off on the Silk Road.
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A Heritage Brand Embraces the Future
Despite his Venetian origins, Nichetto is known in and around the design world for his cutting-edge style that is contemporary, modern, cool and forward-looking. His aim is for Barovier&Toso to adapt to the times and not the other way around.
“One of the things I want to achieve as director is bringing in the knowledge, the heritage and the legacy of Barovier&Toso and moving the brand to be identified as more than a heritage brand, but also moving the perception on what will be the next Venetian chandelier in 50 years,” he said in an interview, adding that he’s been invested in incorporating the creativity of international visionaries into Barovier&Toso’s ongoing history. He’s also been pioneering the production of more retail-orient products and objects, including portable lamps, that will expand the firm’s distribution channel to compliment the bespoke chandeliers business. “This doesn’t mean that we need to become more affordable because Barovier&Toso can never be more affordable in term of price positioning for obvious reasons.”
“It’s about celebrating glass and celebrating the history of Barovier&Toso, but at the same time trying to be more open-minded to bring also different culture and different views from international designers,” he said.
Luca Nichetto, artistic director of Barovier & Toso.
Courtesy of Barovier & Toso
New, International Designers
During Milan Design Week, which begins April 20, Barovier&Toso will showcase the work of nine new designs including three new products by Nichetto Studio, as well as an international mix of designers. The lineup includes Nichetto’s Profilo ceiling lamp, the Aurora table lamp, and Etime, a cubic glass object conceived as a home accessory. There will be new table and floor versions of Agave by Spanish-Italian duo García Cumini and vases by Studio Lani, founded by Nigerian-Canadian designer Lani Adeoye; French designer Emmanuel Babled, Swedish designer Claesson Koivisto Rune and Japanese designer Keiji Ashizawa.
Profilo was designed by Nichetto as a quiet manifestation of the new creative direction in November. Fashioned as a flurry of orbs, it was Nichetto’s first contemporary reinterpretation of the classic chandelier silhouette for the firm. It’s composed of centrifuged glass discs of varying diameters arranged around a central light source. Profilo lit up the vaulted ceilings of San Marco’s Procuratie Vecchie during the “Murano Illumina il Mondo” exhibition.
The production of Profilo was a feat in itself, innovating old techniques but preserving antique spirit, Nichetto explained. “Profilo’s big disc spans 70 centimeters and that’s extremely difficult to achieve that sort of diameter by hand. That disc is not done in a classical blowing technique, but with a centrifuging technique he recalled as a child, maintaining the same kind of craft perception of the blowing glass made completely by hand.”
The Profilo designed by Nichetto for Barovier&Toso.
Mattia Parodi
Paving a New Path
Looking toward the future, Nichetto recognizes the path will be guided by the past, which culminated in 1455, when Barovier’s descendant Angelo Barovier was granted the exclusive right to produce “Cristallo Veneziano” (Venetian Crystal) and later in the beginning of the 20th century when the firm began ideating more consumer-facing products. Nichetto, guided by his own roots, wants to propel Murano’s historic glassmaking prowess and Venice’s magical cross-cultural fabric on a contemporary stage.
“Murano, that was at that time of the Serenissima, one of the most important industrial hubs for glass making, containing the secrets of glassmaking that allowed Venetians to spread that beauty and know-how on a global level,” he continued, noting that the chandelier was made before the bulb and was influenced by the Middle East with a Byzantine aesthetic. Nichetto wants to continue that sort of cross-cultural pollination, recruiting creatives from around the world to collaborate with the brand.
“Venice was a hub that, that embraced different culture. So it’s exactly what I want to do…pick designers coming from different cultures and bring them to work in Murano with a material and a history that was particularly strong for many, many centuries to see what sort of melting pot, in a way, we are able to recreate today,” he said.
The Lithos vase by Emmanuel Babled for Barovier&Toso.
Mattia Parodi
Nichetto has worked with a long roster of brands including fabled Italian porcelain maker Ginori 1735. The trick to enchanting a younger generation, he said, is finding a balance. “You can’t destroy who you are, but you can’t only live off your past, either. Design is linked to history. Without knowing history, it’s impossible to shape the contemporary.”
Elsewhere, Nichetto has been busy. In February, he unveiled a new platform Nichecraft, which includes an e-commerce shop he describes as a “container of creativity” that allows him to do whatever he and his team so desire. “I really like the idea of design being serious fun. It really allows us to do design at 360 degrees,” said.
The first capsule included a watch made with niche watchmaker Unimatic, again inspired by Nichetto’s childhood on the glass art-making island of Murano.
A former semi-pro basketball player, Nichetto traded the court for university, where he studied industrial design and opened his own studio in 2006. Nichetto’s ethos has evolved, but his creative vision and fate were sealed almost from birth.
He has collaborated with names like Hermès and Cassina. In 2022, Nichetto teamed with Steinway & Sons, for which he designed a grand piano inspired by the production of the gondolas sailing around his island home as a child. He also designed Ginori 1735‘s Domus collection of home decor, lighting and furniture.
A New Business Model, New Identity
On a corporate level, Barovier&Toso has been working hard on expanding the business into new markets and adopting modern methods of communication. In 2024, the company appointed a new chief executive officer, Andrea Signoroni, who had served as operations director of Dolce & Gabbana Casa since 2021 and operations director of luxury Italian furniture-maker Cassina before that.
At the time, the firm touted his operations experience and his potential for streamlining and developing the company’s production processes, “allowing Barovier&Toso to further improve the quality of its products and respond more effectively to market demands.”
The brand’s new visual identity, which includes new iconography and logo, was envisaged by Studio Blanco and will also be unveiled at Milan Design Week. The collections will be presented for the first time at the Barovier&Toso showroom in Milan on Via Durini 5 for the duration of Design Week, which ends April 26. This unveiling will be showcased simultaneously at the showrooms in Venice and Murano.
