The Story of Gitana: From Handbag Crush to Lifestyle Brand

The Leather-Scented Beginning

Some ideas don’t just come to you—they stalk you for decades. Gitana is one of those ideas.

Ugo grew up surrounded by the scent of leather, the hum of machinery, and the kind of craftsmanship you can’t learn from books. His father started the Lorenzi leather factory 60 years ago, and as good Italian families do, everyone pitched in. If you could walk, you could work.

I, on the other hand, was raised in an Italian family where entrepreneurship wasn’t a career choice—it was the family sport. My dad ran everything from barber shops to restaurants, both in Italy and South Africa. He always said we attended the best university out there: the university of life.

Handbags at First Sight

And somewhere in the middle of all that “real-world education,” I discovered my first true love: handbags. Not dolls, not ice skating, not Saturday morning movies—handbags.

When we went to Johannesburg’s Carlton Centre to skate, I would insist on detouring past Rialto Boutique (yes, owned by Ugo’s family) just to press my nose against the glass and drool over their exotic creations. My siblings caught on to my obsession and would deliberately reroute our shopping trips to avoid the inevitable “handbag stop.” Spoiler alert: it never worked.

Crafted in 1972 - timeless design meets half a century of craftsmanship

Sweet Sixteen & The Family Business

Fast forward to high school, Grade 11. I switched schools, and who was there? Ugo. The handbag guy himself. Sweet sixteen, match made in heaven.

Eventually, we got married and, true to Italian tradition, I joined the family business too. We all worked side by side, learning from the masters (my mom in-law was the undisputed queen of retail), shaking things up, building the brand, living the leather life.

An old glimpse into our story - Ugo at Lorenzi where we first honed our craft

When Covid Changed Everything

Overnight, the tourist market disappeared, and with it, the stability of the business. Ugo made the tough call to sell. But once you’ve grown up in entrepreneurial families, reinvention is basically second nature.

Back in 2009, my dynamic sister Simona and I had already started our own adventure: a lifestyle store that brought us joy, friendship, and a masterclass in entrepreneurship. We ran it for 16 wonderful years until this year, when life nudged us in different directions. We sold the business, she emigrated and Ugo and I found ourselves staring at each other asking, “What’s next?”

The Birth of Gitana

Funny thing is, we already knew the answer. The seed of Gitana had been planted during lockdown, when the world went quiet and we were forced to pause. We realized we wanted to create something of our own—something that celebrated craft, beauty, and freedom.

So here we are. Gitana isn’t just a brand. It’s a culmination of leather-scented childhoods, entrepreneurial detours, handbag crushes, and a shared love of reinvention. It’s our story, stitched into every design.

Caramel suede. Crossbody ease. First collection energy. The Simona lands mid October.

But it’s also more than our story—it’s yours too.

Gitana was born from resilience, reinvention, and a lifelong obsession with beauty you can carry. Our name means gypsy in Spanish, and it’s our reminder to live freely, to explore boldly, and to embrace style as a way of life.

We’re not just making handbags—we’re crafting a lifestyle for the modern wanderer. And this is only the beginning.

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