Searching for quality
Italy is a country full of tradition and passion. A gigantic open-air workshop: it’s seen the birth of the very first boutiques and the following growth into real ateliers and companies. If you’re after quality, you’re sure to find it here.
We’ve found it
And we’re not the only ones. Italian excellence is recognised worldwide, given merit from just one phrase: “Made in Italy”. We carefully select our workshops, knowing that every region has its own niche, and we pride ourselves on maintaining close relationships with each and every one of them.
Face to face
From parent to child, from mentor to mentee, from neighbor to neighbor, we’ve all heard it somewhere: excellence is never an accident. It has its secrets. Lucky for us, we got to hear them directly from those who know the trade best.
GIACOMO
SHOEMAKER
Giacomo has breathed the art of shoemaking his entire life. He tells us that just before the 70s, people from the countryside started heading towards the factories to learn the trade; many of them then opening their own small businesses. When he was younger, every workshop was devoted to creating a different piece of the shoe. To transport the individual shoe pieces they used the three-wheeled ‘Apecar’; Montegranaro was full of them.
Imagine Montegranaro when I was young, when I went out to play: every door I saw was a shoe workshop!
LUCIANO
SHOEMAKER
Luciano started his craft young, at just 10 years old. This gives Luciano the unique edge of having a lifetime of experience: he tells us that in Montegranaro, making shoes is less a profession, and more of a way of life. When speaking about his job, his expression tells us all that we need to know - he really does love his job.
He confides in us though, that it is undoubtedly a complicated job, one that “can drive you mad”. To recognise the defects in leather or of a shoe still in production, experience and patience are essential; rushing this delicate process is what makes things go wrong.
You don’t know the tagliatelle from Campofilone? It’s thin tagliatelle made by hand. It’s renowned!
MARIELLA
SHOEMAKER
Mariella chats to us while intently sewing the upper of one of our shoes. As a shoemaker with over 40 years of experience, her hands are priceless. She has always worked in men’s footwear, and tells us that mens shoes were once simpler to make. Now her craft is a much more complex and curated process. This being said, she told us she wouldn’t trade her job for anything.
Here you start the shoe and you finish it off, it’s entirely handmade. There’s no comparison, it’s a more curated shoe.
MAURIZIO
SHIRT FACTORY OWNER
Maurizio’s family has been in the textile business since the 70s. The shirts they manufacture are made almost entirely by hand; today, passing them through the machine is just an additional measure taken to create a more precise finished product. Every detail of production is carefully planned and revised, and timing is an important part of the process. You can’t make a handcrafted shirt by repeating the same robotic movements over and over; every step takes time, otherwise you have to start from scratch.
Puglia used to be a shirt-making district. We had the courage to stay, and today we are reaping the fruits of that sacrifice.
GILBERTO
SWEATER FACTORY OWNER
Gilberto is a self-made man. He entered the fashion world as a sales agent, but in 1995 he chose to change his path’s direction. He started in a warehouse with one machine, given to him by a man looking to discard it.
In his words, he was able to learn the trade thanks to stylists and customers, who always pushed him to search for new techniques, do more research, and experiment.
In the thread, there is poetry. There’s a strong passion bringing together the young people that work here.
