Sometimes we get to know brands, but we know very little about who is behind them. Deep down, who is Rita?

I’m a Portuguese product designer and I’m 37 years old. I studied Equipment Design at Belas Artes in Lisbon and as soon I finished my degree, I entered in Fabrica in Treviso, which is a design studio from Benetton that received former students full of fresh ideas. As I started looking for jobs in the Portuguese market, the offer was pretty limited and competition was vast. Instead of starting to work right away, I then decided to apply for an International program that led me to travel all the way to Japan for one year doing an internship at a local studio in Kyoto which taught me perfectionism in attention to detail in my pieces. When I came back, I was entirely sure a Master’s degree would give me my path and so I applied at ECAL - École cantonale d'art de Lausanne, which is one of the best schools for Product Design in the world. That's where I also met my husband.

How did the desire to start the Piino come about?

After my Master degree, I came back to Portugal because I always loved my country. I always thought Portugal had great potential especially for artisans, which was something I was definitely passionate about. I came back to work at a jewellery company in Porto and I ended up loving re-thinking all of their collection. We were happy in Porto but Phillip wasn’t able to find a job here, unfortunately. We went to Frankfurt for five years before coming back for good, where we had our daughter. Coming back a second time gave me this feeling that I needed to do something for myself which was when I created Piino. Jewellery was already a passion of mine, the logistics weren’t crazy because pieces can be quite small, and everything seemed manageable. Piino was born in November 2019.

I always thought Portugal had great potential especially for artisans, which was something I was definitely passionate about.

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