ALEA Firenze, Florence, Italy
Two women. Two cities. Two entirely different worlds meeting at the exact point where stone and leather touch.
Originally from Mexico City, Andrea has lived across several countries, an international upbringing that shaped her global perspective and refined sense of style. She studied at EHL Hospitality Business School, later completing a Master's degree at IE Business School, where she built a strong foundation in strategy, brand development, and leadership.
Drawn to craftsmanship and design, Andrea trained in Florence, Italy, becoming a certified artisan at the historic Scuola del Cuoio, where she specialized in leather craftsmanship and handbag design. Her creative vision is further informed by an interior design certification from Architectural Digest Spain, an influence that brings an architectural sensibility, attention to proportion, and cultivated taste to her work. At ALEA Firenze, her path converges naturally with Ludovica's, giving form to a shared vision shaped by balance, intention, and creative synchronicity.
Italian-born, Ludovica was shaped by a childhood spent between Russia, Italy, and Switzerland, cultivating a unique international perspective and a refined creative sensibility. She later studied at EHL Hospitality Business School, where she deepened her understanding of business and luxury. Following her studies, she pursued her passion for gemstones, earning a Gemmologist degree from the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) in New York, the world's most prestigious authority in the field.
She spent several years working alongside leading gem dealers in Geneva, cultivating a meticulous eye for detail and a deep technical knowledge of precious and semi-precious stones. Guided by a sensitivity to rarity, balance, and natural beauty, Ludovica brings an intuitive approach to material and meaning. At ALEA Firenze, her vision aligns seamlessly with Andrea's, their complementary worlds meeting in a shared language of craftsmanship, symbolism, and intentional design.
Andrea and Ludovica met at EHL in Switzerland. They came from different countries, different disciplines, different material worlds. What they shared was precision: a refusal to do things halfway, a belief that the objects we carry should mean something.
ALEA Firenze is the only thing they could have made together. A bag that is also a stone. A leather object that is also a geological one. Named for women, built by hand in the city where both of them chose to live.
See the collection"We did not want to make a beautiful bag. We wanted to make an object that a woman would still be carrying in twenty years and still be asked about."
Andrea & Ludovica, ALEA Firenze