Traditionally corporate cultures in the success. The finest Italian tailors and shoemakers are in the hands of families with a long tradition in these trades. Companies such as Zegna, Kiton and Santoni live according to the patriarchal principle – and it is making them more successful than ever before. Purposefully, the petite woman with the silver highlights in her hair crosses the enchanting park and the gravel walks that have just been raked, and approaches a remote door in the garden wall, then she walks across a dusty gangway to reach a large roof terrace.
The studios of Italy’s luxury fashion houses are using needle and thread once again.
„My grandfather always came this way. From up here, you can see everything.“ Everything, here, refers to the classic villas under the ancient cedar trees, the roofs of the spacious weaving mill, the chimney with the bright red company logo. Behind that, you can see the forested foothills of the Alps, where grandfather once planted thousands of firs and rhododendrons – a nature reserve north of Trivero, a sleepy little town in Piedmont with the melodious name of Oasi Zegna.
It is the world of Laura Zegna, her family’s inheritance, which she looks after on behalf of her seven cousins, and she watches over it with eagle eyes. At the moment, the energetic woman is overseeing the workmen who are repairing the guest house outside the park: the building will house the family archive in a kind of museum, just in time for the company’s 100th anniversary in 2010.
You can feel the air of anticipation. It will be a celebration for the family, a tribute to the patriarchs with that sonorous and now world-famous name which is also the name of the company; Ermenegildo Zegna But the centenary points beyond Trivero, it is not just a celebration for Zegna, it is also a celebration of one of the core elements of Italian industrial culture. The world market leader for superior men’s fashion and fine fabrics is a prime example of a company model which only really exists in this form in Italy: the patronal large family business, where, across several generations, the ups and downs of the business are controlled only by the founding clan; where the meaning of family takes on a very specific sense and a spirited interpretation.
Employed managers are just that, employed managers; the power lies solely with the family council. Gildo Zegna, who is running the business together with his cousin, does not want to have anything to do with the stock market or soulless financial capitalism. Società bella Italia. Zegna is no exception. The cream of Italian luxury manufacturers shares this attitude and has even created a platform for the preservation of their common way of life: the elite club Altagamma.
In Altagamma, the “Association of High End Italian Companies”, almost everything that has a big name, status and grandeur in the fashion and luxury business is represented: from Agnona to Zegna, from Armani and Brioni to Tod‘s and Versace. Altagamma, it says poetically in their programme, promotes „a culture of excellence as a synthesis of the highest values of Italian lifestyle“. In short, the elite organisation sees itself as a stronghold against the levelling forces of globalisation. The elite club is headed by Leonardo Ferragamo, who runs Salvatore Ferragamo. His grandfather, a small Florentine shoemaker, and his wife Wanda founded the company; and their six children established it as a fashion emporium. Today, Salvatore Ferragamo is one of the largest luxury companies in the country.
In a small town in the hills of the Marches region, half an hour’s drive to the west of Ancona, another shoemaker runs his family factory. Here in Corridonia, around 30 years ago, Andrea Santoni and three assistants set up a shoemaking factory that manufactures fine footwear – a tiny little company that has become a medium-sized business. Santoni has 220 employees, and his daughter Ilenia and son Giuseppe are now part of the management team. Each year, Santoni makes around 100,000 pairs of shoes. While they follow classic designs, most of them have a surprising shape and colour and cost at least 420 Euros each.
„As a family company“, Giuseppe Santoni says, „we allow ourselves the luxury of doing exactly what we want.“ Independence is a central notion in the family company’s set of values: Santoni wants to develop and design whatever is close to his heart and whatever comes to mind. Today, he might want to deal with the shoe market in Russia, and tomorrow in China, but above all, he wants to make quick decisions and make them himself: „A fashion company that is part of a corporation might have to wait six months until the board of directors has given its consent – and by then the trend might have passed.“ In the case of the luxury tailor from Naples by the name of Kiton (from Chiton, the ancient Greek garment), it is also the family that guarantees essential independence and flexibility: the world-famous tailor, based in a dusty commercial area at the edge of the city guarded by 52 German Shepherd dogs, is the life’s work of 73-year-old Ciro Paone.
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