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       Across the lagoon, the Murano glassworks are renowned for producing vases and glasses with iridescent flowers, as well as decorative chandeliers that are often seen in luxury hotels and homes. But some businesses on this densely populated island also produce high-end costume jewelry that can be seen on catwalks and at social events around the world.
       These are not the machine-made trinkets imported from Asia that tourists see in Venice souvenir shops, but creative pieces, carefully crafted from high-quality materials. Two companies renowned for their creativity have done so in typical Italian style: they have incorporated traditional craftsmanship into new designs, while maintaining traditional techniques to this day.
       The Attombri brothers, Daniele and Stefano, use the last reserves of glass beads, which are no longer produced, to create jewellery of often sculptural proportions for the Dolce & Gabbana and Romeo Gigli shows, as well as for stylish women who see jewellery as art.
       Their Murano neighbors, sisters Susanna and Marina Sante, used their grandfather’s glass factory to invent new techniques for making beads. The pieces are made into jewelry, and collectors include architect Tadao Ando’s wife, Yumiko Ando, ​​and renowned Milanese interior designer Monica Armani. Glass sculptor Dale Chihuly also acquired several of his works, perhaps the highest compliment from one glass artist to another.
       “We wanted to use these beads because we wanted to pay homage to an ancient tradition but give it a new meaning,” said Daniele Attombri, standing in the factory and warehouse of Costantini, the last producer of conterie (small glass beads) on Murano.
       When Costantini ceased production about 20 years ago, the Atombri brothers bought up the remaining shares. The brothers, both trained architects, were born in Mestre, near Venice. They decided to respect the city’s traditions and fully develop their artistic talents.
       The final Attombri piece may consist of thousands of tiny beads, each as fine as a grain of sand, painstakingly strung on metal wire rather than the cotton thread used in traditional jewelry; the beads may be twisted into multiple strands or shaped like moons or suns, more like sculpture than jewelry. Women can hang them on the wall rather than on the body and still achieve the same stunning effect.
       The Costantini pearl factory, the size of a two-car garage, is nestled among the maze of Murano canals. The factory houses some 900 boxes, each filled with beads of different colors and sizes: Box 882 is filled with crimson coral beads; Box 778 is filled with amber beads; Box 261 is filled with citrus beads; Box 115 is filled with lapis lazuli beads.
       Some of the beads were so numerous that trying to reach into a box of them was like trying to reach into a sack of rice. But other beads are extremely rare. There are only about half a pound of pure blue beads left, similar to what Andrea della Robbia might have used. “I can make 10 necklaces out of them, and that’s it,” Daniele Attombri said. “When it’s done, it’s done.” There are only 300 of the blue and yellow beads in the world, “and these are mine,” he said.
       Stefano Atombry said their business is demanding. “Sometimes big companies ask us to make beads for their department stores, but we can’t do it,” he said. “We have to go to China or the Czech Republic to buy beads, and we’re allergic to them. They’re all computer-generated: every single bead is the same.”
       At Costantini’s Bead Shop, beads are made differently. The glass is heated so that the artisans (tiradores) can pull the hot glass beads into thin tubes, like making taffy. The tubes are then cut into beads by hand, so each bead is unique.
       In Venice, the Attombri brothers have opened a boutique under the colonnades surrounding the Rialto market, where beads are transformed into fashion jewelry. They use a technique they invented in which they hand-string beads onto metal wire using long needles, traditional in the beading industry, each needle as thin as a hair.
       Creating new and exciting three-dimensional forms is crucial to them and is the result of their architectural training. They make a great team: Stefano Attombri prefers beadwork, while his brother is more interested in metal, using it as a design element in each piece. “What we do is different,” says Daniele Attombri, as his brother works on a beaded collar that took 60 hours to make.
       They also make beaded lamps, chandeliers and curtains, and will open a shop in the spring to display their work. Jewelry costs between €180 and €1,000, or about $195 to $1,085. Furniture ranges from €450 to €10,000, and is sold both in the company’s boutique and in galleries in Japan.
       On the island of Murano, in a large gallery space where boats once stood, the Sante sisters put their own spin on traditional glass bead decorations. Susana Sante trained as an architect; Marina Sante is a chemist.
       ”We are complete opposites,” Susana Sant said of her sister. “Marina is calm, thoughtful and slow, but she never ceases to amaze me with new solutions.” Marina said of Susana: “My sister quickly comes up with new ideas and reacts quickly to changes. We are like a car: I am the brake, and she is the gas.”
       Suzanne Senter said the glass business was a family affair. “Glass is a very familiar material to both of us,” she said. “Our grandfathers on our side of the family, our grandfathers on our mother’s side and our grandfathers on our father’s side, were all glassblowers.”
       ”Our father inherited the business,” she said. “We grew up in a household where we always talked about glass. We always had beautiful glasses on the dining room table.”
       But the sisters wanted to make jewelry, so they applied what they learned around the dinner table to a new direction for the family business. “My father gave us a lot of freedom,” Marina Senter said. “We were free to experiment with glass,” and they did.
       The sisters took traditional family techniques for creating art and vases, including grinding, polishing, and decorating glass, and applied them to making beads. They invented new techniques, such as mixing oxygen with gas, allowing them to create larger beads and more personalized jewelry that were very different from the beads made by the women beaders of the Laguna for centuries. The Saint sisters continued to experiment, mixing existing colors to create new shades, creating their own versions of purple and turquoise.
       ”Bead making became my passion,” said Suzanne Senter, explaining that when they strung big, bold new beads in unexpected colors using her father’s fishing line, friends wanted to see it for themselves, so the Senters added jewelry making to the family business.
       One of the Saints’ signature styles is based on a technique they invented that has since been widely used: a necklace shaped like a cluster of soap bubbles. They also use glass in other unexpected ways, creating scarves and lampshades, continuing the family tradition of creating works of art. For them, there is no difference between the past and the present, because they always adhere to this tradition. “We love that people perceive our jewelry as a work of art,” says Suzanne Saint. “It’s the most wonderful blessing we could ever receive.”