This Shoe Walks on Water, Financial Times, The Business

If you are a shoe fetishist, a meeting with Diego della Valle, Italian owner of the world-famous J.P. Tod’s leather company, is a little glimpse of heaven. His factory headquarters is at Brancandoro, in the Marche region near Italy's Adriatic coast. The gleaming, silver Dolphin helicopter that flew me from Ancona to meet him had caramel-coloured seats, exuding the distinctive leathery perfume of a private aircraft. The interior design was by della Valle himself. After we had touched down I noticed the helicopter’s registration number, I-DDVE, which stands for Italia Diego della Valle Elicottero (elicottero is Italian for helicopter).

Welcome to the world of Tod’s, where “the Shoe is King", as a recent company video proclaims. Actually, it feels as if the owner, not the shoe, is king, but then the two are inextricably linked. I-DDVE is a good metaphor, for della Valle has flown to the top by making shoes and bags which bought by everyone from Hillary Clinton to Harrison Ford. The global market of luxury brands is fiercely competitive. Della Valle has been reticent about putting a precise value on what has so far been a private company, but all that changed this week.

This autumn, not only did della Valle introduce a new, vertiginous stiletto heel amidst his trademark rubber-soled loafers, but he also quietly instructed Merrill Lynch to take the company to the Italian stock market. Tod's has defied a general decline in demand for luxury goods, and hopes to raise about £211m, capital which della Valle says will allow international expansion. Shares should start trading on Monday.

His route to the top was to take a classic 50’s “driving shoe” and redesign it. On the sole, he placed precisely 133 rubber studs, joined with a press and template. The studded moccasin has gone on to conquer the world, and the Tod’s brand – a name invented for its English sound and easy pronunciation in any language – has become synonymous with elegance, flexibility and comfort.

In person, della Valle embodies his products. We talk in his light, airy office at Brancadoro, a £30m white factory building designed by architect Barbara Pistilli, who is the mother of his three-year-old, Filippo. His rooms and most of the corridors are filled with art works, and there is a Ron Arad staircase, which resembles a 21st century interpretation of Coco Chanel’s famous mirror staircase at her legendary boutique in Paris.

“I like colours, and given time, I could be an art connoisseur. I like Alexander Calder, Frank Stella, Andy Warhol,” della Valle confides. A bespectacled, trim 46-year-old, with dark hair and immaculate suit, he admits that he is “a typical Tod’s consumer” – surely a crucial ingredient of his success.

He says that his customers are between 25 and 55, and share a similar outlook, whatever their age or sex. “I want a quality product, whether we are talking about a pen for $2 or a car for $300,000. I want a product that is chic but low-key. It has to be useful – I want light luggage and a light life. It’s important to have a few strong accessories rather than 200 suits or 100 pairs of shoes.” He admits to having 80 suits, spread around his four houses in Italy, but says cheerily that, in the end, we all wear only a few items in our wardrobe.

I tell him that I packed four pairs of shoes for this trip, but I have only been wearing my Tod’s, a taupe-coloured suede pair which are more than ten years old. “You can wear them with everything,” he says, “unless you have a really elegant party.” He swiftly reels off the contents of his suitcase when he travels to the US: “I take one, maximum two, pairs of Tod’s – with those you can survive for a whole week abroad – one pair of jeans, one pair of flannel trousers, one blazer, one grey suit, four Brooks Brothers shirts, two ties… you wash and go.”

In 18 years, Tod’s has become the fourth-largest domestic label in Italy, and one of the largest show compnies in the world, making more than 2m pairs a year. Its annual turnover is £132m. There are more than 50 shops worldwide, including one in London, where there are plans for another flagship store opening next spring. The empire includes Hogan’s, a range of sportier shoes and bags, and Fay, a casual weekend clothing line, currently only available in Italy.

The original della Valle company was founded in the 1940s by Diego’s father, Dorino, at Casette d’Ete, near the town of Ascoli Piceno. The Marche region has more than 2,000 shoe factories and a huge concentration of craftmanship in footwear and skilled labour, about 90 per cent of Italian shoes originate there. “In the future, there won’t be a place for anyone who does not have the skill required to provide a top-quality product,” della Valle says. “We have that skill, but it is getting harder and harder to find skilled workers. There are no professional training institutes, so we have to train our own employees. An apprenticeship takes three years.”

In three generations, the family business has grown into a global company. Dorino, 75, is still actively involved; Diego’s brother, Andrea 35, is day-to-day managing director and Diego's son from a first marriage, Emanuele. 25, works in the company's Manhattan headquarters.

As an 11-year-old, Dorino used to make sandals on Sundays for his girlfriends. "l had the sandals dangling from my bicycle," he recalls, “One pair cost the equivalent of the price of eight eggs. My mother let me keep the money.”

Dorino is a sprightly good-humoured man. dressed in jeans, sweatshirt and Hogan trainers. a contrast to his formal son "l wanted the best for Diego; I wanted him to be a lawyer," he explains — concedes that his son did the right thing following in his footsteps.

Young Diego went to Bologna to study law. but spent little time at his books: "l was always in restaurants and bars. There was a small shoe-maker's shop. with one craftsman who made shoes by hand. I went to see him every day, chatting, smelling the leather, and I loved it. I always thought that I could do so many things with this business.”

His father made him some prototypes —"He has a way of asking that you can't say no to,” says Dorino — and Diego did rounds with them of various factories. He did not want to trade on his father's reputation. and sometimes had to wait hours before a manager would see him.

“What shocked him more was that he had the courage to go to these companies, some of the largest in Europe, to fulfil his dream,” his father says. Now seven factories and 30 partner companies produce exclusively for Tod’s. More than 1,200 people are employed worldwide. Lines are updated constantly, shapes are changed, and colours such as black, chocolate or tan are available alongside seasonal ones like lime-green. cherry-red or yellow. Touring the design rooms and leather warehouse at Brancadoro, I get a glimpse of the obsessive attention to detail that characterises Tod’s. Antonio, one of the controllers, shows me 200 types of leather lying in fat bales: they are worth millions of dollars. Precious lizard, crocodile and python skins are kept under lock and key in a special "cage". Crocodile skins hang in of 10 or 20 to the hook, already dyed red, yellow, electric blue and emerald green. Each hide will be pored over individually for imperfections, as a machine cannot distinguish softness and hue.

The skins — from Germany, France, Britain, the US and South America — are made into shoes at two factories in Communanza. There are 80 stages to making a loafer, and 130 to the new Hogan sports shoe. There is no part of the process that does not entail individual attention, be it cutting, stitching, weaving, moulding, polishing or packing. Every pair is made from the hide of a single animal. so that left and right shoes have the same grain pattern. Tod's shoes sell for £150 to £400 a pair, but devotees insist they are investment buys.

So, too, with the bags. which are made in Florence. The range, launched in 1997, was an instant success, helped by a cleverly orchestrated campaign of product placement with celebrities. The D-bag, for example, was named after Diana, Princess of Wales, who was pictured carrying a tan version. Hillary Clinton famously walked into Tod’s in Paris to buy two; she was photographed toting one of them as she emerged from the presidential jet. The J-Bag created a similar frenzy, particularly the sequinned evening version carried by Elizabeth Hurley. This autumn, the hot bag is the Miky, a buttersoft hold-all, which Catherine Deneuve bought in black. John Travolta and Meg Ryan shop at the Los Angeles outlet. Tod merchandise also gets a good showing at the Oscar and Grammy ceremonies, thanks to fans such as Denzel Washington, George Clooney and Renee Russo.

Luca di Montezemolo, chairman of Ferrari and a long-time friend of della Valle, identifies three important elements that make a successful brand: “A famous name, good taste and consistent quality.” He also points out that Diego has strong control of distribution, “which, frankly, is very important”. Foreign distribution and promotions are run from della Valle’s Milan headquarters. Europe currently accounts for 82 per cent of sales, the US 14 per cent and Asia, 4 per cent.

Monteremolo is also a business partner. In 1995, he and della Valle bought and relaunched the old-fashioned eau de toilette, Acqua di Parma.

Della Valle is now almost as much of a celebrity in Italy as some of his customers. Certainly, he knows how to enjoy himself. He owns two boats, one of which, Marlin, was once owned by John F Kennedy. Then there is the helicopter, a seven-seater aircraft and houses in Marche, Milan, Cortina and Capri. Yet he professes to like the simple life: “No timetables, no decision- making; only the boat, tranquillity, intimate friends, the cinema”.

Della Valle also has admirers from worlds outside fashion. Professor Michael Porter of the Harvard Business School included Tod’s in his yearbook of corporate excellence. “Tod’s represents Italian industry at its best,” says Luigi Abete, the chairman of the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro and a former president of Confindustria, the General Confederation of Italian Industry. "Diego knows how to communicate the value of his product. His company reflects his personality; he knows how to live a public and private life."

This public and private life is much in evidence at the Brancadoro HQ. There is a gym for employees and a creche for their children, attended by Diego's son, Filippo, and Andrea’s daughter, Allegra. Children wander the corridors, screeching with laughter, and the employees wear casual clothes and the latest Tod’s. Filippo has his Tod’s fitted personally by his father.

When I ask Diego what his future plans are, he says that in the next three years the worldwide shop-opening programme will be complete. He will extend his range of high heels and is working on a line of hand luggage for business people, for which he sees a big gap in the market.

“We still want to make modern products of the best quality,” he says, “This is the new luxury for the new economy." His father observes that Diego's goals are fixed: “The moment he has reached one, he is thinking of another.”

Lunch is served in the garden of the family home, a former monastery built during the 14th to 17th centuries. It overlooks the spectacular hilly landscape near Brancadoro and was converted by 42-year-old Barbara. A butler serves pasta with tomato, followed by chicken and courgettes. Della Valle is more at ease here than in his office, where he wrapped up the interview with words of advice for any entrepreneur wanting to build a business. “You have to have strong ideas with realistic vision and determination, especially in moments when everything is against you." FT

Bettina von Hase