Second-Hand, First-Class: Inside Maranteghe Vintage Shop in Venice

Maranteghe: Vintage, Venice and the Art of Wearing Stories

In this episode of Venice Talks, Monica speaks with Laura from Maranteghe, a vintage and second-hand shop in Cannaregio where clothes are never just clothes. They are memories, fragments of other lives, small acts of rebellion, and sometimes, tiny spells stitched into fabric.

Maranteghe was founded by Miriam, Sara and Laura, three women with different personalities and styles, united by a shared love for clothes with character. Born during the pandemic, the project began almost like many meaningful Venetian stories do: with friendship, conversation, a little uncertainty about the future, and the desire to create something authentic.

What started with wardrobes to empty, pieces to rescue and garments to reimagine eventually became a real shop in Venice. Not a glossy, anonymous boutique, but a covo, a den, a place where vintage fashion meets local soul.

A Name with Venetian Mischief

The first thing that catches your attention is the name: Maranteghe.

In Venetian dialect, “marantega” is a word full of personality. It can suggest an old woman, a witch, a mischievous female figure, someone outside the rules, someone who does not care too much about behaving properly. It is ironic, earthy, affectionate and sharp, exactly like Venice when she is not trying to impress anyone.

Choosing this name was not just a branding decision. It was a declaration of identity.

Maranteghe embraces the playful, feminine, irreverent side of Venice. It does not present fashion as something cold or untouchable. Instead, it invites people to enter, browse, touch, try on, remember, laugh, and perhaps discover a version of themselves they had forgotten.

Vintage as Memory, Not Nostalgia

During the conversation, Monica and Laura explore the deeper meaning of second-hand fashion.

Vintage is often described as sustainable, and of course it is. Giving clothes a second life means reducing waste, resisting fast fashion, and choosing quality over disposable trends. But at Maranteghe, sustainability is only one part of the story.

There is also memory.

Many garments come from private wardrobes, including those of Venetian women. These clothes arrive carrying traces of lives lived: dinners, parties, workdays, travels, heartbreaks, celebrations, ordinary mornings and extraordinary evenings. A jacket may remember a theatre night. A dress may still hold the confidence of the woman who wore it before. A scarf may carry the quiet elegance of another era.

Buying second-hand, in this sense, becomes an emotional gesture. You are not simply buying an object. You are continuing a story.

Venice Against the Fast and the Fake

Maranteghe also feels deeply Venetian because it stands against a certain idea of the city.

So much of Venice today is consumed quickly: one photo, one spritz, one souvenir, one hurried walk from the station to San Marco. But real Venice has always been layered, slow, theatrical, intimate and strange.

A shop like Maranteghe belongs to that slower Venice.

It is not built around mass tourism or identical objects. It is personal. It asks you to look closer. It invites you to choose with instinct rather than algorithm. It celebrates clothes that already have a past, rather than pretending everything must always be new.

In a city where authenticity is often used as a marketing word, Maranteghe makes it feel physical again. It is there in the fabrics, in the labels, in the cuts, in the conversations, in the way a piece is selected because it has a reason to exist.

Three Women, One Shared Vision

Although Monica speaks with Laura in this episode, the story of Maranteghe is also the story of three women working together.

Miriam, Sara and Laura each bring a different eye to the project. Their individual tastes shape the selection and create a shop that does not feel flat or predictable. It is not one single aesthetic imposed from above, but a small chorus of styles.

That is part of the charm.

Some pieces are elegant, some eccentric, some romantic, some bold. The result is a space where different women, and different versions of the same woman, can find something that speaks to them.

The Lion with Its Tongue Out

Even the logo carries a wink.

Maranteghe includes a playful Venetian reference: a lion sticking out its tongue, inspired by a medieval bas-relief in the Archivio di Stato di Venezia. It is a perfect symbol for the shop: local, historical, cheeky and just a little rebellious.

Because Venice is not only beauty and grandeur. Venice is also humour. Venice is masks, dialect, gossip, survival, irony, and women who know exactly who they are.

Listen to the Episode

This episode of Venice Talks is a conversation about fashion, but also about identity, memory, sustainability and the women who keep Venice alive in unexpected ways.

Through Laura’s voice, we step inside Maranteghe and discover a place where clothes become stories, wardrobes become archives, and second-hand fashion becomes a way of looking at the world differently.

Show Keynotes

In this episode, Monica and Laura discuss:

• How Maranteghe was born during the pandemic from friendship, wine and wardrobe reinvention
• Why vintage fashion can be emotional, cultural and sustainable at the same time
• The meaning of the Venetian word “marantega” and why it became the perfect name
• How Miriam, Sara and Laura choose the pieces that enter the shop
• The stories hidden inside the wardrobes of Venetian women
• Why second-hand fashion can be a form of resistance against waste and mass-produced style
• The importance of Made in Italy and local authenticity
• How Venice inspires style, theatricality and personal expression
• Why Maranteghe stands against the “mordi e fuggi” tourist economy
• The playful Venetian detail behind their logo: a lion sticking out its tongue, inspired by a medieval bas-relief in the Archivio di Stato di Venezia

Listen to the new episode of Venice Talks and step inside a shop where clothes are never just clothes. They are fragments of lives, whispers from wardrobes, and tiny spells stitched into fabric.