VITTORIO SPERNANZONI

A TIMELESS TRADITION

Vittorio Spernanzoni was born in 1936 in Morrovalle, in the heart of Le Marche. Right in the aftermath of the war, he started working at a very young age as a shop boy at a shoemaker’s of his town. Soon he would start his own workshop - out of the space below his home’s stairs - trying out different finishing techniques. In 1965 he started his business adventure, and produced the first shoes entirely made in his workshop.

Although passed away prematurely, he had been able to transfer his knowledge - and passion - onto his children Enrico, Roby and Lorella, who are still working in line with the teachings of their father, to create extremely detailed pieces. Naturally drawn towards always improving its skills in this trade, over 20 years Spernanzoni has been able to establish its name as one of the best hand-made workshops in the world, manufacturing goodyear welted shoes and many more.

Thanks to its reputation, the company has secured partnerships with some of the major international fashion brands. The creation of an entirely hand-made line under the Vittorio Spernanzoni brand is aiming at paying tribute to the late founder but it also represents the consistent choice to save and revamp the hand-made tradition that still relies on skilled craftsmen, who - with just a bunch of tools, endless patient and great ability - create long-lasting products.

By the Vittorio Spernanzoni line, the company wishes to create exclusive products making the most of manual and craftsmanship skills, as the result of a process of de-industrialisation of the production line.

Each manufacturing stage is entirely hand-made to make sure items have a unique personality, mirroring their creators’ skills and flair. It’s up to craftsmen to develop each single stage: from cut to stitching and mounting and last but not least, finishing, the key element to give the shoes the final touch. These techniques are typical of the pre-industrial cobbler workshop activity, when this service was enjoyed by rich people until the Forties and the Fifties, as the expression of a timeless art. Tradition and innovation meet in an attempt to discover - yet again - this timeless, accurate know-how now almost lost to mankind.

With patience and total dedication, each pair of shoes is created, step-by-step, by the precise hands of the craftsman, who gives these products the most important of values: time. Indeed, over time is when shoes turn into little works of art, as the result of skills and passion of those who spent years of their lives learning how to master this old trade.


ANTIQUE FINISH

One of the key elements of a hand-made, top-quality product is the selection of leathers:
these must have a crusty colour or have features that allow removing the colour at any time, even after years. This allows bringing them back to their ‘neutral’ stage and then dyeing them again. When they arrive to the tannery, they’re like white canvasses, with no defined colours.

Being so, craftsmen can customise leathers as they please and with a palette of dyes and polishes, applied in layers, by hand directly with a brush, turn them into unique masterpieces. In some cases, colours are also removed from the shoes with suitable products to reveal the ‘core’.

Later on, they would be dyed and polished using specific creams to obtain the desired colour and shade. Each shoe is then polished by hand with bee’s wax and water, to produce the sufficient heat and make sure leather pores close up naturally. This process gives the shoes an extremely special shiny effect.