Setting Up Shop — Inside Spazio Leone, the London Showroom Rekindling the Legacy of Cult Design Masters

In a world of copy-pasted high streets punctuated by identical stores, independently-owned businesses stand out for their inimitable contributions to the communities they serve. Setting Up Shop is the Livingetc column that takes you inside the lives and professional ventures of shopkeepers who went the extra mile to run the stores of their dreams.

It isn't a coincidence if Spazio Leone — the design showroom stemming from founder Gennaro Leone's love of vintage Italian furniture and forward-thinking artistry — finds its home in the creative melting pot that is Hackney Downs Studios. Located between Dalston and Clapton in the heart of East London, the space benefits from the eclectic range of independent retail, hospitality, publishing, and art realities rising within the lively premises of the workspace provider. The influence of such dynamic setting is tangible in Spazio Leone's collection which, rooted in an appreciation for design cult masters and featuring anything from mid-century modern and Bauhaus masterpieces to eccentric sculptural rarities, continually transforms to reflect the pulse of contemporary culture.

Born in the suburbs of Naples at the dawn of the 1990s, Gennaro's creative career began right in the moment he set foot in the music industry of the buzzing Campanian city. Having left his parents' home at 17 to relocate there on his own, he quickly became involved in its burgeoning club scene, first co-founding an events company with a friend, then managing events at the historic Neapolitan nightclub Velvet. Catapulted onto the international music stage, he jumped on a train headed north to join the experimental reality of C2C Festival in Turin: "they didn't have any job openings, but as the best Italian electronic music festival, I knew I had to find a way to work with them," Gennaro tells me.

Having started out as a music consultant at the Turinese underground event, he moved to London in the early 2010s. Here, Gennaro collaborated with avant-garde music venues like Cafe OTO before joining British broadcaster and club promoter Boiler Room as a lead booker and senior curator. Now running his own family-style Italian restaurant in Hackney, Dalla, which pairs authentic Mediterranean cuisine with vibrantly curated modern interior design, along with his eponymous showroom, the furniture and art dealer has successfully channeled his entrepreneurial spirit into projects embodying what he values most.

Here, Gennaro tells us about the chance encounter that propelled the birth of Spazio Leone, how the space seeks to pair acclaimed names with the work of rising promises, and why the Hackney Downs hotspot isn't but the beginning of an ambitious, community-based platform.

"Spazio Leone was born out of necessity in the autumn of 2020. Already before COVID-19, I had started to feel like I needed to break out of my career in the music industry. As I looked around for new opportunities, I decided to reconnect with Naples, my hometown, which I hadn't been able to visit extensively in the previous 10 years. While there, I began to feel the urge for personal growth — the need to work on something of my own. I was looking to buy a house with my then-girlfriend Tessa when I met Enzo, a fellow Neapolitan active in the antiques and vintage furniture business. I was fascinated by how he had turned that passion of his into a profession, which led me to spend the whole summer with him, listening to music and flicking through old interior design magazines like Gio Ponti's Domus.

"I had always been passionate about design, furniture and objects, but that encounter changed everything. Through Enzo, I began to collect multiple items and showcased my finds on an Instagram page I had launched in the meantime. Having connections within the fashion and the music scene, the creatives I knew became my organic clientele. I opened a first space in Stoke Newington and then moved onto a bigger one. Today I have a showroom in Hackney Downs, a storage unit and a huge warehouse in Belgium from where I source pieces for global commercial clients. These include the Gabriella Khalil-designed Palm Heights, an extraordinary stay on Grand Cayman, and WSA, Downtown Manhattan’s 31-story new cultural hub, as well as Carmen Amsterdam, a design-driven guesthouse nestled in the heart of the city’s center."

"I strive to represent the best of Italian design, from Venetian architect and designer Carlo Scarpa, his son Tobia and daughter in law Afra Bianchin to Gae Aulenti. Still, I also have pieces from international pioneers such as Japanese designers Shiro Kuramata and Kazuhide Takahama, the latter of whom relocated permanently to Bologna to work side by side with 1970s' leading Italian furniture entrepreneur Dino Gavina. At the same time, I am always platforming voices from the contemporary scene. Every year I put up exhibitions of artists I find deeply inspiring: Naples-born, Eindhoven-based Francesco Pace of multidisciplinary design studio Tellurico and Georgian textile artist Mariana Chkonia are only two of the people I got to spotlight with a solo show recently.

"I don't stick to any prefixed vision. Instead, I aim to encapsulate the influences gathered through my experiences in the music and fashion industry, as well as from my travels, into a project that connects them all. For me, it is about having tact and recognizing the different energy that each piece brings into the space. You also have to keep in touch with the trends taking over related fields and know how to incorporate those in the showroom's collection. I have always liked my projects to feel eclectic, but learning the importance of balancing renowned names likely to translate into good commercial results with emerging artists whose work is just as valuable is equally fundamental to the survival of an independent platform. If when I was younger I shied away from anything 'commercial', today I know you need to reach more than just one type of person."

"My advice for those looking to set up shop independently is to work hard and be satisfied with what you are building. If you love what you do, doing it is not a burden. I wake up everyday feeling happy to have what I have: it is not always easy and it can be stressful, but I would be lost without it. Having grown up in the outskirts of Naples, I wouldn’t be where I am now had I not put my drive and heart into everything I do. Talent is important, but what makes the difference is the ability to overcome obstacles, accept potential failures and keep moving forward. Only experience allows you to understand what works and what doesn't, and to hone in on that common thread which, made of countless suggestions and contaminations, helps your project stand out from the rest.

"The hardest part of creating something like Spazio Leone is believing in what you are doing. You need to have the confidence to know you are on the right track, and there are only a few ways to know: if you buy, you sell. And if you sell, you are doing well. If people talk about you, if opportunities like this one happen, if there is an interest growing outside of your business and directed towards it, what you are up to is working. I like to think that whatever project one might have in mind to pursue, if you dedicate everything you have got to it, it is only a matter of time but people will understand it. Whether you are successful the first time around or it takes multiple attempts, if that's what you live for, you will get there."

"Ultimately, Spazio Leone is me — it's everything I like. It is my identity, what people have learnt to recognize and appreciate me for, along with my work at Dalla. It starts as a gallery, a showroom or, more simply, a space full of objects and furnishings, and people moving around them. Through our temporary activations, it becomes a platform for creative exchange and conversation.

"Spazio Leone is where my passion for food, music, design, fashion and art collide. Here, people come and go, creating things and sharing experiences along the way. Only days ago London-based chef and creative director Imogen Kwok performed in the space, Armani shot there with Harrods as did my wife Tessa with her own fashion brand, Home of Hai, and there's plenty more projects in the making. Through these dialogues and collaborations, we hope to contribute valuably to the creative reality of London and beyond." Looking to the future, the goal is to expand the concept of Spazio Leone into a boutique hotel hosting residencies for all of the artists I have had the opportunity to meet over all of these years — putting people at its heart to take it into its next chapter."

Browse Spazio Leone's full collection here

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