What is still actually made here
Four things, broadly: lace, filigree, glass and pottery. Knitwear and weaving persist in smaller numbers, and there is a working contemporary art scene that has nothing to do with any of them.
The honest framing is that none of these is a large industry. They are a small number of people, many of them not young, doing skilled work slowly. That is worth knowing before you compare a price to something in a souvenir shop, because you are usually not comparing like with like.
Bizzilla
Bobbin lace, worked by hand on a cylindrical cushion with dozens of small wooden bobbins called ċombini. The craft as it exists now was deliberately revived in the nineteenth century with technique and patterns brought in from Genoa, and it took hold most strongly on Gozo, with Sannat as its centre.
It is slow. A sizeable piece is weeks.
There is a fuller account on its own page, including how to tell handmade from machine-made, which is the thing most worth knowing before you buy any.
Filigree
Silver drawn into very fine wire, coiled and twisted into open patterns and soldered. The motif you will see most is the eight-pointed Maltese cross.
The technique is Mediterranean rather than Maltese in origin, but it has been worked in these islands a long time. One practical advantage over lace: silver sold in Malta is subject to hallmarking, so there is an objective check on the metal available to you that there is not on the provenance of a piece of lace.
Glass
The craft with the most to watch. Molten glass is gathered, blown and shaped in front of you, and the forty minutes spent watching it is more interesting than anything you will take home.
One practical note: the furnaces run in the morning. Turning up at four in the afternoon generally means a shop with the lights on and nobody working.
Ta’ Dbieġi
The crafts village near Għarb is a cluster of workshop units rather than a single attraction, and it is the easiest place to see several crafts in one stop with people actually working.
What is open varies with the season and the day. Mid-week mornings are the best bet; late afternoons in winter are the worst.
The question worth asking
A fair amount of what is sold as Maltese or Gozitan craft across these islands was made somewhere else. That is not a scandal and it is not hidden. It is simply not volunteered.
The question is: was this made here, and by whom?
It is asked often enough that nobody finds it rude, and it is the single question that separates a workshop from a stall. People selling their own work, or their neighbour’s, answer it immediately and usually at length. The answer tells you most of what you need, including whether the price makes sense.
Elsewhere on the island
- Practical Getting to Gozo, and getting around once you are there The car ferry, the fast ferry from Valletta, the buses that all go through Victoria, and whether you actually need a car. Including the fare quirk that catches everyone once.
- Countryside The Gozo countryside: terraces, walls and valley walks A plateau cut by valleys, held up by dry stone walls somebody still maintains. Where to walk, when not to, and what you are actually looking at.
- History & heritage Gozo’s history, from Ġgantija to the Ċittadella Temples older than the pyramids, a citadel whose population was carried off in a single raid, a windmill from 1725 and a lighthouse on the highest hill. What is actually worth your time.
Questions
Where can you watch crafts being made in Gozo?
Ta’ Dbieġi crafts village near Għarb is the obvious place: a cluster of workshops where lace, glass, filigree and knitwear are worked on site rather than only sold. Which units are open varies with the season and with the day, so it is worth going in the morning and mid-week. Individual studios are scattered around the villages as well, and several are open by arrangement rather than by sign.
How do you tell handmade Gozo lace from imported?
Handmade bizzilla has small irregularities: the ground is not perfectly even and the thread shows tension differences where the work was put down and picked up. Machine lace is flawless and flat, and cheaper by a large multiple rather than a small one. A sizeable handmade piece is weeks of work, so if the price looks reasonable for the size, it is almost certainly not handmade.
What is Maltese filigree?
Silver drawn into very fine wire, then coiled, twisted and soldered into open patterns, most often around the eight-pointed Maltese cross. It is a Mediterranean technique rather than a uniquely Maltese one, but it has been worked in these islands for a long time and the cross motif is local. Hallmarking applies to silver sold in Malta, so there is a check available that there is not for lace.
Is there glass blowing on Gozo?
Yes, and it is the craft most worth watching rather than only buying, because the working is the interesting part. The furnaces run in the morning, so arriving in the afternoon often means seeing a shop rather than a workshop.
Is the stuff in the Victoria market made locally?
Some of it. A good deal of what is sold as Maltese or Gozitan craft across the islands is imported, and that is not a secret so much as an unasked question. Sellers of island-made work are generally pleased to be asked where a piece came from and who made it, because it is the thing that distinguishes their stall.