Mother, wife, and freelance journalist. Valeria Abate was born in Genoa in 1984 and, thirty years later, chose Novara for a dream of love. Sporty and precise, she started writing at primary school and has never stopped. She alternates bedtime reading with her greatest passion: Greek mythology. She is a bit old-fashioned when, always on the ball, she insists on taking notes on her paper notebook with a fountain pen and is in a hurry, riding her vintage Bianchi, hunting for the news. She writes articles on news, sport and culture and has tried her hand at short stories, aphorisms, and a light comic vein in describing a ‘loser’ aspect of her life. Her days are the perfect fit between a child in kindergarten, a dentist husband, and notes in her diary. She cooks without poisoning anyone, does sport, and occasionally sleeps.
At the age of 7 she joined a gymnastics club for the first time and at 16 she represented Italy in the 1985 World Championships in Spain with the national rhythmic gymnastics team. In 1996 she founded the dance theatre company ‘Gli Argonauti’ of which she is choreographer and prima ballerina and has performed alongside big names from Carla Fracci to Moses Pendleton (Momix) and Steve La Chance. A child of art, in 2013 she began her journey as a musician studying piano, singing and drums. She specialised in the latter by attending masterclasses with Gavin Harrison and Thomas Lang. In 2016-2017 she conducts “JetLag – Voli pindarici nell’universo del Rock”. She is the current songwriter and multi-instrumentalist of La Grazia Obliqua and the drummer of Carillon Del Dolore, an iconic Italian post-punk band with an international reach. She speaks five languages and is the author of a book of poems entitled ‘Blueglou’.
Born and raised in France of Apulian parents, she graduated in languages and business and commerce at the University of Stendhal in Grenoble, and has always worked in marketing and strategic communications for luxury companies. After Panerai and Harry Winston, where she held the position of world communications director based in Geneva, she came to Milan and headed the southern European branch of Parmigiani Fleurier. For the past few years, he has dedicated himself, as a consultant, to brand building for companies in the luxury, fashion, high cosmetics, and jewellery sectors. She strongly believes in the value of the group and enjoys working with people who, like her, are enthusiastic. She loves the sea, travelling, meeting people from different cultures and gets up very early to watch the sunrise because, she says, everything must be experienced from there.
Gilda Faleri is an Italian Royal Watcher. Since childhood, she has nurtured a great passion for the royal families, especially for Elizabeth II and the Windsors. With a degree in public relations and advertising, with a double specialisation in communication for international relations and fashion journalism, she has been working on the web for years and this is how, in 2019, she founded the website www.thequeeg.com, a natural development and deepening of one of the first blogs on the royal families, Gilda and the Royals, very active from 2011 to 2015. In The Queeg she combines a passion for the royal lifestyle and history with an (innate) propensity for fashion and style. She owns a brand of jewellery inspired by royalty and is writing her first book dedicated to the Royals.
Nineteen years old and a passion for show business. After the Academy of Musicals at the Sistina Theatre, he continued acting, singing, and dubbing. He has taken part in several shows, including ‘Evita’ with Malika Ayane and ‘È Cosa buona e giusta’ with Michele La Ginestra. During his thefirst lockdown, he became involved in the world of wine and graduated WSET2. While waiting to take the exam for WSET3, he is enrolled in the second year of Oenology in Florence. He has participated in the production of several wine guides and currently writes on the Wining.it portal, editing a column dedicated to young people.
A repentant computer scientist, he has made communication his core business. A software developer, Systems engineer and Web Designer with hundreds of websites and many thematic portals created, before the advent of Web 2.0, he turned his attention to content. In the late 1990s, he took part in cooperation projects for the implementation of the network infrastructure at the Senegalese Radio Television in Dakar. A certified pilot of SAPR systems with which he makes videos, he puts his nose into theatre by organising the Independent Musical Festival with MINDIE, and collaborates with Moolmore in the film industry. An AIS sommelier, he is the editor of Wining.it and a member of international juries in the wine sector. He boasts a dozen scientific publications on the environment and, while he played water polo in Serie A for almost twenty years, he now relaxes on golf courses. He speaks English, but mostly Spanish, is an enthusiast by nature, and – he says – TheUnique came at just the right time to spice up his days.
Sixteen years old (and a half), bilingual Italian English since birth, at only 13 she made her journalistic debut by interviewing Heinz Beck for OM, an important international magazine specialising in modern and vintage watchmaking, founded and edited by her aunt Francesca. In love with music, painting and travelling, she studies at art school and chooses to specialise in multimedia. She still doesn’t know exactly what she will do ‘when she grows up’ and in the meantime she is gaining experience in all the sectors she likes: from fashion to cinema via auction houses and publishing. She feels very much like Andy Sachs with the aggravating factor that she cannot get rid of Miranda even after working hours.
Born in Rome in 1968, he is the first registered pizza journalist/writer. A Greek passport holder, he graduated in sociology with an experimental thesis on the history of international relations entitled: ‘How does one become a Macedonian?” In his latest book, Eroi Bestiali (Bestial Heroes), published by Rossini, he reviewed all the animals of the Iliad and the Odyssey. He has edited several investigations – from transport to waste – broadcast live on radio. After an experience in some professional kitchens in the capital, he returned to journalism not disdaining, occasionally, natural leavening.
Brand and Food Designer in the H.O.R.E.C.A. sphere, founder of the group “I fooddesigner”, she is the author together with Nicoletta Polliotto of the book Creative Restaurant branding® il metodo per far far emergere l’identità straordinaria del tuo locale, published by Hoepli, in 2021. She is a designer and builder of brand identities that want to be distinctive because – she says – it is not enough to have perfect products and services, you need to be able to tell your essence, enter an intense relationship with your customers and create magic. She says that, since the time of the ancient Greeks, the guest, even if unknown, was sacred to Zeus and maintains that, today more than ever, the guest should feel the sacredness of the host’s kindness but, above all, the uniqueness of the host.
She wanted to work in financial communication, but found herself catapulted between fashion, TV, football and luxury goods. She made her professional debut in New York, worked in Paris, London, Geneva, Miami, and Los Angeles and was the executive producer of ‘La grande storia della Juve dal 1897 al 1997’, published by ‘La Stampa’. She has a daughter, Ludovica, two dogs and two master’s degrees. She speaks four languages, has written two books and loves reading, playing the piano and playing tennis. In 2009 she launched a course on Made in Italy at the University of Minnesota that led her to write the book ‘Passione I.T.A.L.I.A.’ published by Mondadori (2011) with a preface by Santo Versace. She has a predilection for everything that starts and everything she has not yet done. On her wish list is learning to dance the tango and launching ‘Madame F.’, the clothing line she has started to design.
He wanted to become a dancer, but this fervent and unfortunately unrequited passion had to give way to the desire to draw with light. The incomparable pleasure of daring relegated him (!) to New York, where he lived for several years and where he began to express his creativity. After America, the secular revelation on the road to Japan, where his photography becomes adult, intimately linked to the complicated art of subtraction. He has the passion, vanity, and pride to consider himself a Bordeaux garageman on loan to photographic inspiration. A tireless traveller waiting for those moments that fate randomly throws on the threshold of his little world of fantasies, instincts, and visions. In June 2009, he started a storytelling project on umbertostefanelli.com that is still ongoing.
After Classical High School, she graduated at the age of 22 from ‘Federico II’ in Naples. She teaches literature, looks at the world with the eyes of a dreamer and believes in the values of Family and Friendship. Her great passions are good food (she is an excellent cook), music (she is a very good singer), reading, writing (but she doesn’t say so because she is modest and doesn’t want anyone to read her writings) and… pizza! Proudly Italian and Campanian.
With a degree in psychology, she started working in large companies, but discovered she had a flair for PR and communication strategies. She specialised in institutional and product press office work, particularly for the nautical industry, which fits in well with her love of the sea. Curious and adventurous, as befits every great sailor, she is passionate about technological innovation and connectivity and, since 2015, has been the Public Relations Manager at Octo Telematics. Mother of Rebecca, she can be seen out and about with Lilly, the short dog. A lover of reading and drinks with friends, she plays padel and continues to go to the seaside.
She wanted to be a dancer, but after studying foreign languages and literature, she started working in the automotive industry managing the customer care of a 100% made in Italy company: Maggiore Rent. She then managed PlayStation’s customer care, living between Rome, Milan, London, and Madrid. He returned to the Luiss Business School, for the very first edition of the executive training programme in Digital Marketing. Since then, she has been consulting with EY and teaching Social Media Management applied to luxury at the IED in Rome, thus indulging her passion for fashion and luxury. What about the ballerina? Dreams are wishes and in 2021, after three years of study, the dance recital finally arrived when she performed in a Burlesque act at the Ellington Club in Rome. Meanwhile, she married Massimo, with a sunset beach party. The goal at TheUnique? To get (very soon) to say: ‘Everyone wants to be us’ (Miranda Priestly – The Devil Wears Prada).