My story.

I recently met up with a fellow interior designer who had reached out to me as an enthusiast of colour, personality and layered design in interiors and we became fast friends over a caffè at La Tana. We were exchanging stories of how we started our own companies and, reaching even further back, how we started in design and I found it an interesting exercise to encapsulate my [origin] story for her - so here it is:

I grew up in a very Italian household, and a very artistic one at that. My parents, both Italian immigrants (father from Tuscany, mother from Sicily) had a tight group of fellow Italian immigrants who formed my immediate family, they were (and still are) architects, tradespeople, artists, entrepreneurs, and do-it-yourselfers. I grew up thinking it all quite ordinary to sit at the table after dinner and listen to them bounce ideas around - with generous gesticulating, obviously - blue prints, graph paper and scale rules at the ready. Later, when I first started to learn the skills of drafting in university I picked up these very familiar tools, feeling quite at ease with their weight and application, thanks to those many dinner-table discussions.

My parents were both creatives and, looking back now, we had a Bloomsbury approach to our home: every surface was an opportunity to create something. Our walls were sponge-painted and stencilled by my mother, our floors, window sills, some tables tops and even our counter tops were tiled by my father and I painted my room in a theatrical purple and my bedroom door with Italian landscape scenes. Our home was our palette and place to experiment. I learned to grout, paint walls, think about use of space, design custom pieces, critique my environment and better it where I could thanks to this enthusiastic, sometimes scrappy, but always tasteful approach rooted in our traditional Italian heritage.

Born in Vancouver with grandparents still in Italy meant that I experienced Italy nearly every year of my life since I was 10 months old. Our stays in Italy were always in Trapani for a few weeks but I always got to see something new on our travels: Taormina, Siracusa, Palermo, Rome, Genova, Bergamo, Ancona, Pisa, Golfo dei Poeti, Firenze, Napoli… and even Paris, it was wonderful. As we often travelled in the summer due to school I was constantly escaping the Italian heat by ducking into every church I saw (and, as you may know, there are many churches in Italy!). These early Italian experiences were of course formative and their memories inform my design every day: the light reflected by marble - and its scent - the sound of stone buildings, their mass; the classical details of columns, architraves, mantles and stairs; collected personal environments; linen curtains billowing in the morning breeze; the feel of tile under-foot (it’s quite wonderfully wild how daring the tile selections were in the 19th century and earlier!). Most importantly I experienced - felt without realizing it - what a welcoming home, restaurant, piazza or park feels like. What makes people gather, stay and feel comfortable enough to exchange in conversation or quietly sit and contemplate. This is what informs my desire to create spaces that support us in what we want to do.

I discovered the theatre in high school. In truth I had always known about the theatre as my father had worked in film and his brother, my uncle, was a famous thespian based in Rome whom we’d often visit on our yearly travels. I started working on the sets of my high school productions and, soon enough, the productions formed greater reason for my attendance than some of the classes (though I adored my English and biology classes). I pursued theatre in University, graduating with a BFA in Design & Technical Theatre from University of British Columbia and worked exclusively in theatre for years primarily as a set designer but sometimes doing costumes as well which I loved. Theatre is always in my life, in my work. Every home - every space - needs a bit of theatre. What this means to each of us is different but I fundamentally believe that it’s the theatre in the home that keeps us interested, entertained and it keeps us smiling. This could be a pin stripe on a sofa, an arch in a hallway, a daring light fixture - anything can be theatrical, it’s all in how you see it. Studying and working in theatre taught me a lot: how to work with a team, how to be part of a team, what it takes to create something bigger than the sum of it’s parts (when harmony amongst all teams is met, magic happens) and also how to tie knots. I think knots should be taught in all schools, we seem to stop at shoelaces and leave the rest to chance but tying a good knot - and there are different knots for different purposes - is a life skill.

When I began designing exhibits for the Museum of Vancouver I started to step outside of the theatre and into the wider world of design, eventually leading me to interior design. We created some beautiful exhibits there: No Place for A Lady which then travelled (quite appropriately) to New Brunswick and Newfoundland as well as Belle Époque which showcased women’s fashions from the period. Both exhibits were quite theatrical but also, reviewing them now, they were indicative of the interiors I would strive to create. Especially in Belle Époque, I designed room scenes for the exhibited elements creating a backdrop to tell the story of the lives of who’s objects were on display. It strikes a familiar chord with how I design for clients. I worked full time as an exhibit designer, employed at AldrichPears and it’s there that I realized I was a visual story-teller, always had been. Whether it was theatre, exhibits or interiors, I’ve always been fascinated with the telling of the unique story of the protagonist: stage character, historical figure or client. It’s also at AldrichPears, working with fantastic creative directors who I am happy to still call friends today, that I learned the importance of a truthful and succinct concept. Any project, large or small, needs to have a concept in order to be successful. At AldrichPears, multi-million dollar exhibits would have failed had they not had the strong roots of a concept and the same goes for designing interiors.

Theatre led me to my working on the TV show Love it or List It Vancouver when the show’s local producer, who I had had worked with on theatre productions, asked me to be part of the team. Love it or List it Vancouver (or LOLV as we refereed to it) is where I cut my teeth as an interior designer. We all know that reality TV isn’t often very real but I can tell you that the aspect I worked on was: real renovations with real people (and personalities), real money, real contractors and trades and real challenges. I soon became head designer working directly with Jillian Harris and a team of 3 designers to realize 26 renovations each season - and most of them were kitchens and bathrooms. All that I had developed through my work in the theatre and exhibits translated to this mash-up of renovation/production (including the tying of knots!). Tight timelines meant that success came from having a strong concept. Tight timelines also meant that organization and communication was paramount (a born organizer, I heartily met the challenge). My knowledge of how things are built and my ability to do quick on-site sketches meant that I could communicate the design intent and help come up with resolutions more effectively. And my goodness did I learn a lot. I was fortunate to work with extremely talented contractors and trades people - the best of the best - and they served as my training in interior design. They were engaged to try new things but would tell me when something wasn’t going to work. They realized my visions (a thrill I never tire of, seeing my sketch become reality) and went above and beyond to make the deadline (like the theatre, no one had the power to push opening night, the arrival of the cameras was a known definite). Teamwork under pressure, creativity within constraints, story-telling and putting on a show - this was Love it or List it Vancouver.

After 3 and a half seasons of LOLV I was ready for new challenges and wider offerings. With a fellow LOLV veteran I started Rudy Winston Design in 2016 which evolved to Studio Albertazzi in 2021 when my business partner stepped down. At my company’s inception I knew that I was to be an agent of design, to draw the design out from the clients by way off asking key questions and by observing, interpreting and offering up possibilities for their wishes. It’s in the last few years that I have homed in on what it is that I champion for my clients: personal design, responsible sourcing and creativity.

I can’t wait to see where the next chapters of my story take me.

Photo credit: Janis Nicolay