A resident restorer with the Ministry of Cultural Affairs, Guia is involved in the conservation and restoration of textiles and leather artefacts at the Opificio delle Pietre Dure in Florence, where she also lectures in the same disciplines at the SAFS. Qualifying in the field of textile materials at the Florentine Institute in 2000 with an experimental thesis on the restoration of a straw cloche hat, she graduated in 2008 from a three-year degree course in Technologies for the Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Heritage at the Università di Viterbo on the restoration of decorated polychrome leather artefacts.
In 2004 she obtained a fellowship at the ICCROM in Rome to study Egyptian artefacts made of plant fibres, and in 2013-14 she was Senior Fellow at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York for studying the museum’s collection of painted and punched leather items. From 2002 to 2017 she worked as a restorer of textile and multi-material artefacts, primarily for public institutions, but also privately with her own company situated in the Museo del Tessuto in Prato in maintenance, restoration and exhibition organisation and layout.
She has published articles on the conservation of textile items and a catalogue covering Museo Bardini’s entire collection of leather wallpaper, entitled Cuoi d’oro. Corami da tappezzeria, paliotti e cuscini del Museo Stefano Bardini, Florence 2009.