81 stores · curated ORBIS register
Italian shoes divide between the bench and the mountain, so this plate walks both paths. Florence's Sutor Mantellassi hand-welts bespoke shoes in the leather tradition of the city. AKU lasts its hiking and trekking boots by hand, trusted by alpine professionals and NATO forces. On the ski side, Dalbello builds the Panterra and Lupo boots around cabrio-shell construction from Venetian specialists. The rest of the list is honest Abruzzo leather with a few vegan pairs. Terrain should choose the shoe; the last will shape the day from there.
Via principe amedeo 41, bari / Italy
Raphael 1966 is a multibrand fashion store in Bari with two locations, on Via Dante and Via Principe Amedeo, stocking labels like C.P. Company, Birkenstock and Asics alongside streetwear brand Hi Five. The shop pairs its physical stores with a full online catalogue of clothing, shoes, accessories and fragrance.
Best for Streetwear, multibrand fashion, sneakers
Via Garibaldi, Bellagio
Gaia Bellagio has fitted out its Via Garibaldi shop with Italian-made shoes and accessories since 2008, from women's sandals and boots to men's loafers in Italian leather. It pairs artisan-made footwear with bags and belts, keeping the old resort rhythm of a midday close and an afternoon reopening.
Best for Italian-made shoes
Historic centre, Bellagio
This family leather workshop, founded in 1978, cuts and hand-finishes belts, bags, shoes and wallets in the quiet upper lanes of Bellagio's old centre. The makers source hides from Tuscan tanneries and work them by hand with manual splitting and sewing tools, turning out limited runs rather than stock lines.
Best for Hand-finished leather bags and belts
Bologna / Online
Bologna shoemaker since 1929 — Amedeo Testoni's Bolognese construction method defines lightweight Italian footwear craftsmanship.
Best for Bologna-construction comfort.
A.Testoni was established in Bologna in 1929 by Amedeo Testoni (born 1905), who trained through apprenticeship in Bologna's major shoe workshops before founding his own workshop. The brand became synonymous with the "Bolognese method"—a distinctive soling technique developed and perfected by Testoni. Amedeo's background as a third-generation shoemaker (his family worked in the trade for generations) provided both technical mastery and deep knowledge of materials and construction. The brand's reputation became significant enough that founders of other now-prominent Italian shoemakers (Stefano Branchini and Enzo Bonafe) both trained under Testoni, underscoring the technical excellence of his methods. Today, A.Testoni manufactures exclusively in Italy using premium leathers and fabrics, maintaining production close to Bologna where the founder first established his atelier nearly a century ago. The brand represents continuity of craft tradition—every shoe embodies the Bolognese construction principles refined from Amedeo's original specifications. The company remains relatively specialized, producing for clientele seeking Italian heritage footwear rather than volume or fashion-trend focus.
Bologna, Italy
Italian luxury footwear house founded in 1950, headquartered in a workshop in Fermo, Marche, specializing in handcrafted equestrian riding boots and leather footwear using exotic leathers, calfskin and Cordovan.
Best for Boots, shoes, equestrian
Alberto Fasciani was founded in 1950 in Italy's Marche region. The company's production is based in its own workshop in Fermo, with an additional showroom in Milan. The house built its name on technical equestrian riding boots before broadening into fashion footwear for men and women. Alberto Fasciani is known for using premium and exotic leathers, including shell cordovan, calfskin and buffalo hide, combining traditional Italian bootmaking craft with contemporary silhouettes.
Bologna, Emilia-Romagna, Italy
Siblings Bruno, Marino and Maria Magli began handmaking women's shoes in their Bologna family home's basement in 1936; a 1947 factory and 1967 first retail store followed, and the brand later expanded into men's footwear and international retail.
Best for Luxury shoes, accessories
Bruno Magli traces to 1936, when the Bologna-born Magli siblings - Bruno, Marino and Maria - began handmaking women's shoes in the basement of the family home, drawing on skills passed down from a cobbler father and grandfather. In 1947 the family opened a dedicated factory under the name 'Magli,' and during the same decade added men's shoes to the range, which later became the company's best-selling category. As Bruno took the lead on design, the business name evolved from 'Magli' to 'Bruno Magli.' The first standalone retail store opened in 1967, followed two years later by a move to a larger, modernized Bologna factory. From the mid-1970s, businessman Rolf Grueterich helped the company expand into the American market; by the 1980s and into the 1990s the brand had grown to more than forty stores across Europe, China, the Americas and Australia.
Bologna / Online
Bologna shoemaker founded in 1963, producing hand-welted and hand-finished dress shoes and boots with bench-made construction for classic menswear.
Best for Hand-welted Bolognese shoes.
Bologna / Online
Founded in 2001 by English-born designer Deborah Baker and made by family-run artisanal footwear makers in Bologna, Fiorentini + Baker is best known for its Eternity line — supple leather and suede biker boots finished with tiered metal buckles.
Best for Lived-in leather boots.
Bologna, Italy
Bolognese boot craft — hand-lasted leather of Emilian construction tradition.
Best for Boots, hand-lasted leather
Florence / Online
Edgardo Osorio’s Aquazzura makes glamorous shoes in Florence with wearability built into the construction. Palazzo Corsini, the pineapple emblem and celebration-ready heels give the house its identity, while production remains associated with Italy.
Best for Celebration heels.
<p>Edgardo Osorio founded Aquazzura in Florence in 2011, at twenty-five, with a footwear education already behind him — the Colombian-born designer had passed through Salvatore Ferragamo and Sigerson Morrison before deciding the market was missing an obvious thing: a shoe as glamorous as a red-carpet sandal that a woman could actually walk in. The pineapple stamped on the sole became the emblem of that promise.</p><p>The house headquarters occupy Palazzo Corsini on the Arno — a sixteenth-century address for a twenty-first-century atelier — and production stays in Italian workshops. The signatures are now canon: the Wild Thing's fringed ankle, the Sexy Thing's sculpted cage, strappy silhouettes engineered so the arch is supported where it photographs bare. Royals and red carpets adopted them at speed.</p><p>Aquazzura's real achievement is positional: it broke into footwear's most crowded tier — the Florentine-made luxury sandal — against houses with a century's head start, on comfort engineering alone. The lesson is very Florentine: seduction is a construction problem, and construction is solvable.</p>
Florence / Online
Florence sneaker label founded in 2005 by four friends - Damiano Innocenti, Alessandro Zanobini, Tommaso Santoni and Emiliano Paci - whose initials form the name; shoes are handmade in Italy, with monobrand stores in Florence, Rome and Milan.
Best for Italian sneakers
D.A.T.E. was founded in Florence in 2005 by four friends - Damiano Innocenti, Alessandro Zanobini, Tommaso Santoni and Emiliano Paci - whose first initials spell out the brand's name. The group met in London while dissatisfied with their existing careers and decided to design their own sneaker line, drawing on early-1970s British style for their debut collection. That first season sold fewer than 700 pairs, which pushed the founders to take manufacturing in-house rather than abandon the project, using leather and fabric from established Italian tanneries and weavers. Every pair is handmade in Italy, and the brand has since introduced recurring models such as the Hill Low, Fuga, Court and Sonica lines. D.A.T.E. now operates monobrand stores in Florence, Rome and Milan and is distributed through more than 900 points of sale worldwide, with a particularly strong presence in Japan.
Florence / Online
Ferragamo began as Salvatore Ferragamo's Florence footwear company in 1927. Its range expanded into leather goods and ready-to-wear, followed by silk and accessories. Palazzo Spini Feroni houses the company's historic Florence presence, while the museum in its basement is a separate visitor attraction.
Best for Ferragamo footwear and leather goods with Florence design history
Salvatore Ferragamo established his Florence company in 1927, concentrating on women's footwear. The business subsequently expanded into leather goods and ready-to-wear before silk and accessories followed as distinct parts of the range. Shoes remain an entry point into a house whose offer now extends well beyond its original speciality.
Palazzo Spini Feroni connects that history with a specific Florentine building. Ferragamo opened a footwear workshop there in 1938, and the palace became the company's headquarters and the setting of its first Florence store. The museum occupies the medieval basement, providing a separate way to encounter the founder's work and the company's archive.
A shop visit and a museum visit serve different purposes. One is for comparing the current collections; the other depends on the museum's exhibition programme and admission arrangements. The group's timeline dates the museum's inauguration to 1995, long after the workshop arrived in the palace. Planning for both can give more context to a footwear purchase, but a museum ticket should not be confused with access to a working production workshop.
Florence / Online
Founded as a Florentine leather house in 1921 — the double-G empire still rooted in Tuscan workshops. Guccio Gucci worked as a porter at London's Savoy hotel (from 1897) before opening the Florence shop in 1921 on Via della Vigna Nuova.
Best for The icons: Horsebit loafers, Jackie bags, and full-look luxury.
Guccio Gucci, who had absorbed luxury's theatre working at the Savoy in London, opened his Florentine leather goods shop in 1921, selling equestrian-inflected luggage and saddlery whose hardware — the horsebit, the green-red-green web stripe — became the house vocabulary. Wartime material shortages produced the bamboo-handled bag of 1947, still in production. The family saga that followed was operatic enough for cinema, but the house's Florentine craft base endured through every act, and its creative directors — Tom Ford's 1990s glamour, Alessandro Michele's maximalist archive-mining — each revived it by returning to the codes. The horsebit loafer, added to MoMA's collection, may be the single most-copied shoe in menswear. Florence is the right city to buy: the house began here, and the loafer, the bamboo bag, and the web stripe all carry the origin visibly.
The Gucci Garden in Piazza della Signoria adds archive rooms and a Bottura restaurant to the Florentine pilgrimage — see it before buying at the flagship.
Via De' Tornabuoni, Florence / Online
Luxury-sneaker label launched by the Della Valle family's Marche footwear business in the 1980s, part of what became Tod's Group; its early-1990s 'Interactive' sneaker, combining dress-shoe detailing with a sport-shoe sole, remains its signature design.
Best for Interactive luxury sneakers.
Hogan grew out of the Della Valle family's shoemaking business in Italy's Marche region, whose founder Filippo Della Valle started making shoes from a basement workshop in the 1920s. Hogan was launched in the 1980s alongside the Fay outerwear brand as the family diversified beyond its original footwear operation, and both later became part of Tod's Group, now also home to the Tod's and Roger Vivier labels. Hogan's defining product is the 'Interactive' sneaker, introduced in the early 1990s, which combined sport-shoe construction — a flexible rubber sole and sneaker silhouette — with the detailing and materials of dress footwear, including its raised 'H' side logo. That hybrid approach to what the group calls the 'luxury sneaker' became one of the more imitated design templates in upmarket casual footwear through the 1990s and 2000s.
Florence, Italy
Florence bespoke shoemaking atelier of Japanese master Hidetaka Fukaya, combining hand-made Italian construction with precise last-making and custom fitting.
Best for Hidetaka Fukaya's bespoke Florence shoemaking
Florence, Italy
Florence bespoke shoemaker founded in late 2013 by Mario Bemer, brother and longtime right-hand man of the late Stefano Bemer, after Mario left the reconstituted Stefano Bemer company following Stefano's 2012 death.
Best for Bespoke shoes, Florentine
Mario Bemer is the younger brother of Stefano Bemer, who began the family's shoemaking work in 1983 in Greve in Chianti, starting from shoe repair before building a reputation as one of his generation's most respected bespoke makers. Mario worked at his brother's side for years, including on the brand's ready-to-wear division, effectively serving as Stefano's right-hand man. Stefano Bemer died on July 27, 2012, at age 48. Several months later, the Stefano Bemer company was bought by the Florentine family behind the leather goods house Scuola del Cuoio, and Mario initially stayed on with the reorganized business. By late 2013, however, he had left to start his own company under his own name, setting up a traditional bespoke workshop in central Florence. There he works alongside bootmaker Seiji Miyagawa, a craftsman with his own long-standing connection to Stefano's circle. Mario has described his work as an attempt to honor his brother's exacting standards for quality and creativity rather than simply continuing the earlier brand under a new name.
Oltrarno, Florence / Online
New Kid specialises in children’s footwear, including first shoes and school styles from European makers. Proper fitting and growth allowance are central, giving the Florence shop a clear service advantage.
Best for First shoes done properly.
Via Della Vigna Nuova, Florence / Online
The American preppy empire — Ralph’s pony from Oxford shirts to Purple Label, selling the dream of East Coast ease since 1967.
Best for Oxford shirts and polo classics.
Florence, Italy
Roberto Ugolini opened his bespoke shoemaking workshop on Via dei Michelozzi in Florence's Oltrarno district, opposite the Basilica di Santo Spirito, in 1995 at age 28, continuing a family shoemaking tradition spanning four generations.
Best for Bespoke patina, Florentine
Roberto Ugolini is a bespoke shoemaker whose ground-level workshop sits on Via dei Michelozzi in Florence's Oltrarno district, directly facing the Basilica di Santo Spirito. He opened the business in 1995 at age 28, but the craft runs deeper in his family: his great-grandfather, grandfather and father were all shoemakers before him, and he learned the trade within that Florentine artisan lineage rather than through a formal design school. Each pair is entirely handmade, with roughly thirty hours of work going into construction once a bespoke last has been developed for a client — a process that, including the customer's first pair, takes around half a year, with a documented discount on subsequent pairs made from the same last. The workshop has built an international clientele over three decades, with press coverage specifically noting a strong following among Japanese customers, alongside general recognition as one of Florence's most established bespoke shoemakers. Ugolini's business is representative of the broader Oltrarno artisan quarter, a concentration of small ateliers south of the Arno historically associated with leatherwork, shoemaking and other hand crafts, distinct from Florence's larger fashion-house retail presence on the north bank.
Florence / Online
Florentine bespoke shoemaking — the atelier where Daniel Day-Lewis apprenticed, now a temple of handwelted shoes.
Best for Bespoke and handwelted Florentine shoes.
Florence, Italy
Florentine bespoke shoemaker since 1912. Hand-welted construction and exceptional leather selection.
Best for Bespoke shoes, hand-welted; Shoes; Bespoke Shoes; Hand-Stitched Shoes
Florence / Online
Zara sells trend-responsive fashion, shoes and accessories through large international collections.
Best for Runway-echo fast fashion.
Forte dei Marmi / Italy
My Mancini on via Giuseppe Mazzini in Forte dei Marmi makes handmade shoes in Italy, each pair shaped to order.
Best for Handmade shoes made to measure
Milan, Italy
Menswear label founded in 2015 by brothers Joris and Philip, launched with Italian-made driving shoes before expanding into knitwear and polo shirts produced in family-run ateliers across Italy, including a factory near Como.
Best for Nautical polo, luxury
Aurelien was founded in 2015 by two brothers, Joris and Philip, around a stated belief in understated, timeless menswear rather than seasonal trends - press coverage places the brand alongside Italian houses such as Brunello Cucinelli, Loro Piana and Tod's in category, though it is not affiliated with them. The label began with driving shoes and has since expanded into knitwear, polo shirts and related casual-luxury pieces. Aurelien doesn't manufacture in a single factory; its own materials describe garments developed in specialist, family-run ateliers spread across Italy and elsewhere in Europe, with its polo shirts specifically produced at a factory near Como. Coverage of the brand focuses on this 'quiet luxury' positioning and small-atelier production model. The brand sells primarily through its own site.
Veneto / Online
Marsell is a Milan-founded (2001) footwear and leather-goods brand made by siblings Roberto, Marco and Elisa Cima, manufactured by hand in ateliers in the Riviera del Brenta, Veneto's traditional shoemaking district.
Best for Sculptural minimalist shoes.
Marsell was founded in Milan in 2001 by siblings Roberto, Marco and Elisa Cima. While the brand is based in Milan, its shoes are made by hand in the family's ateliers in the Riviera del Brenta area of Veneto, a district long associated with Italian shoe manufacturing.
Marsell's aesthetic runs toward organic, sometimes intentionally distressed leather forms and deconstructed shapes rather than polished, conventional dress shoes. Between 2009 and 2018 the company also ran Marselleria, a multidisciplinary cultural space in Milan (with a period presence in New York) hosting exhibitions and performances, extending the brand's identity into broader design and art programming before it was discontinued.
Milan, Italy
Virgil Abloh’s quotation-marked legacy — diagonal stripes, "SHOELACES" and streetwear’s museum moment. Italian company founded in Milan in 2013 by a Chicago-born designer; first Milan retail door only in 2020 (WWD/Hypebeast). Precursor project Pyrex Vision launched December 2012.
Best for Diagonal-stripe streetwear and quotation-mark irony.
Virgil Abloh founded Off-White in Milan in 2013 with a thesis he stated openly: streetwear could operate at fashion's highest register, and irony — quotation marks around "SHOELACES," around everything — was a design material. The diagonal stripes, the red zip-tie left on Nike collaborations, the crosswalk arrows: he built a visual language teenagers could read at fifty meters and museums could footnote.
The Ten, his 2017 deconstruction of Nike's icons, is arguably the most influential sneaker project ever; the Louis Vuitton menswear appointment in 2018 made him the first Black artistic director of a French heritage house, and Off-White's Paris shows became the decade's cultural crossroads — Serena Williams' tutu dress, "FOR WALKING" boots, Princess Diana moodboards.
Abloh died in 2021 at 41, having reframed who fashion is for; the Brooklyn Museum's "Figures of Speech" retrospective sealed the museum moment his label had joked about. LVMH took a majority in 2021 and sold the brand to Bluestar Alliance in 2024 — the quotation marks now around the word "legacy," earned.
PRINTEMPS
Milan-based footwear label founded 2015 by Annamaria Brivio, known for Western-influenced boots and croc-embossed heels blending Parisian styling with American-frontier motifs.
Best for Italian-made croc-print western boots
Paris Texas is a shoe brand founded in Milan in 2015 by designer Annamaria Brivio. The concept is built on a deliberate contrast named in the brand itself: Parisian polish paired with the bolder, frontier-inspired energy of the American West, expressed through cowboy-boot silhouettes, croc-embossed leather, and stiletto heels. Italian-made, the line is stocked internationally by luxury multi-brand retailers and department stores, including Printemps in New York, alongside its own direct-to-consumer site.
Corridonia / Marche / Online
Marche's master of hand-painted patinas — double-monks and goodyear artistry from Corridonia. Andrea (then a shoe-factory production head) and Rosa (a seamstress) began with machines in their garage in Corridonia; Giuseppe Santoni, who took over as CEO in 1990, told Vogue Santoni shoes are made in Corridonia, not Italy.
Best for Hand-antiqued double monks and dress shoes.
Andrea Santoni began making shoes in Corridonia, in the Marche shoemaking district, in 1975, and the house his son Giuseppe expanded remains family-run and rooted there. Santoni's signature is visible before the shoe is handled: hand-painted patina finishes, built up in translucent layers so that each pair's color has depth and slight individuality — a technique the house made central rather than occasional. The construction underneath is classical Marche craft: Goodyear and Blake welting, hand-stitched details, a double-buckle monk strap that became the house's best-known model and helped return that style to fashion. The range runs from sneakers to bespoke, but the dress shoes carry the argument. Look at the patina in natural light when buying — the layered browns and burgundies are the house's actual signature, applied by brush in Corridonia, and no two pairs read identically.
Ask whether a model can be ordered in a custom patina; the Corridonia workshop takes color commissions, and the service turns a purchase into a small commission.
Milan / Online
Milan direct-to-consumer footwear brand founded in 2013 by Enrico Casati and Jacopo Sebastio, manufacturing in Montegranaro in the Marche shoemaking district and sold only through the brand's own site.
Best for Honest-priced Marche-made shoes.
Velasca was founded in Milan in 2013 by Enrico Casati and Jacopo Sebastio, two friends who quit their jobs after struggling to find well-made leather shoes at a reasonable price. Their search for a manufacturing base led them to Montegranaro, part of the Marche shoemaking district. Velasca's core model is direct-to-consumer, selling only through its own website and later its own retail stores, cutting out markups typical of traditional shoe retail. The company has since expanded from men's dress and casual shoes into apparel and women's footwear, opening physical stores including a New York location.
Milan / Online
WAIT and SEE mixes clothing with shoes, jewellery and accessories from changing independent labels. The Milan store’s colourful, densely styled rooms reward browsing across categories rather than shopping a single designer.
Best for Playful, vibrant, inspiring assortment of clothes, shoes, and accessories
Naples, Italy
Neapolitan shoemaking’s rising legend — hand-welted Aurélien lasts and bespoke-grade ready-to-wear from Casandrino.
Best for Bespoke shoes, hand-welted
Naples, Italy
Florence bespoke shoemaker founded in 1953 by Sicilian-born Calogero Mannina; the Oltrarno workshop near Ponte Vecchio and Palazzo Pitti, now run by son Antonio, still hand-produces made-to-measure men's and women's footwear.
Best for Neapolitan bespoke shoes
Mannina was founded in 1953 by Calogero Mannina, who left his hometown of Santa Margherita di Belice in Sicily at age eighteen to open a small cobbler's workshop in Florence. The business began on Via de' Barbadori and today operates from Via Guicciardini 16/R, in the Oltrarno district a short walk from the Ponte Vecchio and Palazzo Pitti. Antonio Mannina, Calogero's son, now runs the workshop, continuing entirely handmade production of bespoke and made-to-measure shoes.
Naples, Italy
Neapolitan shoe artistry — hand-welted norvegese construction and museum-patina finishing from Casandrino.
Best for Norvegese construction, bespoke
Ostuni / Italy
I'M Mimma Marzio is a shop on Via Custoza in Ostuni selling clothing and shoes, with bags too.
Best for Clothing, shoes and bags
Piazza Di Spagna & Immediate Area, Rome / Online
A Rome footwear and leather-goods house opened in 1971 by Fausto Santini, son of a shoemaker, on Via Frattina near the Spanish Steps; known for sculptural, architecturally influenced shoe design developed with figures including Aldo Rossi.
Best for Sculptural Italian shoes and geometric leather bags
Fausto Santini opened his first atelier on Via Frattina in Rome in 1971. He came from a shoemaking family — his father Giacomo Santini ran a shoe shop in Rome where Fausto apprenticed — though Fausto himself had trained as a lawyer before turning to footwear. The Via Frattina boutique, still operating today, established the house's identity early: rather than following seasonal fashion cues, Santini treated each shoe and bag as a formal design exercise, working with pared-back, geometric silhouettes that read closer to small sculpture than conventional footwear. That architectural approach was reinforced through direct collaborations with architects and designers, including Aldo Rossi, Andrea Branzi and Antonio Citterio, who worked with Santini on object and packaging design over the years. The house also operates an outlet location on Via Cavour, named for Fausto's father, selling past-season stock from the Via Frattina and Paris boutiques. Production remains based in Italy. Santini's minimalist, sculptural shoe designs have been referenced repeatedly in fashion and design press as a case of architectural thinking applied directly to footwear construction rather than surface decoration.
Via Frattina, Rome / Online
Geox is Montebelluna's 'breathing shoe' — patented perforated soles from the Veneto shoe district.
Best for Breathable everyday shoes.
Piazza Di Spagna & Immediate Area, Rome / Online
Giuseppe Zanotti focuses on San Mauro Pascoli's jeweled-heel designer, sculptural party shoes from Romagna's shoe district.
Best for Jeweled heels and sneakers.
Turin / Online
Italian sneaker since 1911, Turin-made — the 2750 cotton canvas plimsoll with vulcanized rubber sole, lightweight and breathable, the people's casual shoe of Italian summers.
Best for The 2750 classic in every color.
Superga was established in 1911 when Walter Martiny began producing shoes with vulcanized rubber soles at the Superga factory in Turin, Italy. In 1925, Martiny created one of the world's first sports shoes with a vulcanized rubber sole to meet the needs of his tennis player wife. The 2750 Cotu Classic is a canvas sneaker with a vulcanised rubber sole that has since become a timeless staple of casual footwear. The shoe features an extra-strong, fully breathable, pure cotton canvas upper and is lightweight with a rubber sole for anti-skid capacity and stability. The 2750 became established as the people's shoe of Italy, serving generations of Italians for everyday wear and summer casual occasions. The shoe has been a familiar sight since its beginning and has inspired flat-form and mid-top variations, been transformed for all weather conditions, and has collaborated with designers to bring fresh interpretations. Over a century of continuous production demonstrates the enduring design and universal appeal of this Italian classic.
Italy
Trentino bootmakers since 1985 — hand-lasted hiking and trekking boots trusted by alpine professionals and NATO forces alike.
Best for Hand-lasted hiking and trekking boots trusted by alpine professionals and NATO forces
Fermo, Marche, Italy
Fermo luxury children's footwear — artisanal Italian shoemaking with licensing from Philipp Plein, MSGM, Elie Saab.
Best for Children's luxury shoes
Andrea Montelpare specializes in high-end handcrafted shoes for children, representing traditional Italian shoemaking expertise rooted in the Marche region. The brand positions itself at the intersection of luxury, contemporary design, and time-honored tradition, dedicated to the artisanal creation of beautiful children's shoes of excellent quality. The company emphasizes the value of handmade Italian manufacturing and draws on the experience of preceding generations of craftspeople. Andrea Montelpare delivers the joy of discovery, taste for design, and the pleasure of a correct fit through its products. The brand has secured significant licensing agreements with prestigious international fashion houses including Philipp Plein, Philippe Model, MSGM, Mischka Aoki, and Elie Saab, demonstrating its recognition as a leader in luxury children's footwear production and distribution on a global scale.
Mantua / Online
Po-valley moccasin family (six generations) — vegetable-tanned desert boots at honest prices. After WWI the small Fratelli Travenzoli firm began making several footwear types with the Ideal method, which official history says is still the base of most shoes.
Best for Desert boots
Italy
Founded in 2005 in Civitanova Marche and now based in Barletta, with a second plant added in Tirana, Albania in 2011; produces about 450,000 pairs of safety shoes a year and fits some models with BOA's micro-adjustable dial closures.
Best for BOA safety shoes
Base Protection was founded in 2005, starting out in Civitanova Marche before relocating its base to Barletta, in Puglia, where its main production now runs. The company added a second manufacturing site in Tirana, Albania in 2011, expanding capacity as demand for its safety footwear grew; combined output across both plants runs to roughly 450,000 pairs of safety shoes a year. Base Protection's specific technical identifier within the safety-footwear category is its adoption of the BOA Fit System, a micro-adjustable dial, low-friction lace guides and a lightweight lacing cable, all covered by BOA's lifetime hardware warranty, integrated into work shoes otherwise built to meet industrial safety-footwear standards such as toe protection and slip resistance. The BOA dial closure, more commonly associated with performance and outdoor footwear, distinguishes Base Protection's shoes from most conventional laced or velcro-strap safety footwear, letting wearers fine-tune fit without laces to tie during a shift. The company frames its broader philosophy as 'Weareco,' organized around environmental impact, product design and personnel wellbeing, alongside patents it holds on footwear components.
Montegranaro / Marche / Online
Montegranaro shoemaker founded in 2004 by third-generation cobbler Franco Gazzani and his cousin Lewis Cutillo; nine artisans hand-stitch roughly 3,800 pairs a year using an awl and waxed thread.
Best for Small-batch hand-colored lace-ups.
Bontoni's roots trace to the late 1940s, when Guido Gazzani began hand-stitching shoes for other local makers out of a small basement workshop in Montegranaro, in Italy's Marche region. His sons Bruno and Manfredo continued the trade by hand through the following decades. The Bontoni brand itself was founded in 2004 by Franco Gazzani - Guido's grandson - together with his distant cousin Lewis Cutillo, with the workshop set up in what had been the family's garage. Today the atelier employs nine artisans who produce about 3,800 pairs a year, using saddle stitching sewn by hand with an awl, two needles, and waxed thread; some models carry double or triple stitching for added durability.
Francavilla Fontana, Puglia
Bottega Dalmut is Leonida Ferrarese's tailoring house in Francavilla Fontana, Puglia. After studying in New York and working in the marketing offices of Salvatore Ferragamo, he took over the workshop of Maestro Cafueri, founded in 1969, and launched the brand. The atelier sits in a late nineteenth-century Liberty-style palazzo. It makes tailored suits along with ties and shirts and shoes, and it holds fittings in Milan, Zurich, London and Dubai.
Best for Sartorial Suits, Ties
Bottega Dalmut is a tailoring house in Francavilla Fontana, in the province of Brindisi, built by Leonida Ferrarese. He took a degree and a master's in marketing in New York, where he also studied tailoring. He spent time in the marketing offices of Salvatore Ferragamo on Fifth Avenue. He then returned to his home town and took over the historic workshop of Maestro Cafueri, founded in 1969, launching the Bottega Dalmut brand. The atelier occupies a late nineteenth-century palazzo with frescoes and nature-inspired floors in the Liberty style. Clients choose from a wide range of fabrics seated in the salon over a coffee. Everything starts at the cutting table with the tailored suit. The range extends to ties in cashmere or silk, to bow ties and shirts, and to shoes. In January 2020 the Quotidiano di Puglia visited the atelier on via Quinto Ennio. It described a business that exports its suits to Dubai as well as to London and Milan. The house holds made-to-measure appointments in Milan, Zurich, London and Dubai. The midfielder Hakan Çalhanoğlu wore a bespoke midnight-blue herringbone suit from Bottega Dalmut to the Gran Galà del Calcio AIC. The current collection also includes swimwear and suede blazers, together with lightweight wool and silk pieces.
Tuscany / Online
Tuscan leather-goods house founded in 1974 by Mauro Sani in Stabbia, still family-run; named for the Maremma buttero cowherds, working in vegetable-tanned Buttero leather from Conceria Walpier.
Best for Tanino sneakers and western boots.
Buttero was founded in 1974 by Mauro Sani in Stabbia, a town in Tuscany, and is now run by his children and grandchildren. The brand takes its name from the butteri, the Tuscan cowherds who traditionally worked the Maremma plains on horseback, and it draws its visual language from Italian saddlery and equestrian gear. Buttero's shoes, boots and sneakers are made locally by skilled Tuscan craftsmen using vegetable-tanned Italian leather. The specific leather most associated with the brand, known as Buttero leather, is a full-grain calf leather that is vegetable-tanned, dyed through, and hand-finished on the bench - produced since 1973 by Conceria Walpier in Castelfranco di Sotto, also in Tuscany.
Italy
Italian safety-footwear and workwear manufacturer headquartered in Barletta, Puglia; founded in 1938 by Ruggiero Cortellino as a workshop making shoes from military truck tyres and uniforms, it added a dedicated safety division in 1989.
Best for Safety boots and workwear
Cofra began in 1938 as Cortelgomma, a workshop founded by Ruggiero Cortellino that made shoes from recycled military truck tyres and surplus uniform fabric. The company took the Cofra name in 1983 under Giuseppe Cortellino, the founder's son, and opened a dedicated safety-footwear division in 1989. In 1997 it became the first Italian footwear manufacturer certified to UNI EN ISO 9001. Cofra is now headquartered on a roughly 60,000-square-metre site in Barletta, Puglia, with an additional manufacturing plant in Albania, and supplies protective boots and workwear to industrial customers across Europe.
Italy
Founded in 1974 in Asolo, Italy by Alessandro Dal Bello, who trained as a boot-building artisan at Switzerland's Henke ski boot factory before returning to Italy; an early mover in the shift from leather to plastic ski boots.
Best for The Panterra and Lupo ski boots and cabrio-shell construction from Venetian specialists
Dalbello was founded in 1974 in Asolo, near the Dolomites in Italy's Treviso province, by Alessandro Dal Bello. He and his wife Giovanna had spent years in Switzerland learning ski-boot construction as artisans at the Henke boot factory before returning to Italy to start their own line under the Dalbello name. The company's early years coincided with the ski industry's shift from traditional leather boots to injected plastic shells, a transition Dalbello was directly involved in developing rather than adopting late. Through the 1980s the brand built a reputation for precise fit, which helped it expand into international markets beyond Italy. Its current lineup centers on cabrio-shell construction — a two-piece shell design distinct from the more common overlap shell — used across boot lines including the Panterra, for alpine skiers seeking a stiffer, performance fit, and the Lupo, aimed at backcountry and touring skiers who need a boot that walks as well as it skis.
Montegranaro / Marche / Online
Marche shoemaker founded 1968 by Mario Giannini in Montegranaro, first as 'Ducale', renamed Doucal's in 1973 after his study of the English shoe trade; hand-stitched Italian-leather men's shoes, about 100 steps per pair.
Best for Flexible loafers and sartorial footwear.
Doucal's began in 1968 as a small shoemaking workshop in Montegranaro, in Italy's Marche region, founded by Mario Giannini under the name 'Ducale.' In 1973 the artisan workshop was reorganized into the Doucal's company, with an Anglicized name inspired by Giannini's time studying the English shoe industry in Northampton. The company still manufactures at its original Montegranaro site, in a district regarded as a center of Italian handcrafted footwear. Each pair is built by hand from Italian-tanned leather through roughly 100 individual production steps, a process that can take up to two months per pair. Giannini's sons, Gianni and Jerry, later joined the business.
Marche, Italy
Family shoemaker founded 1965 in Montegranaro, Marche, by brothers Elisio and Enrico Fabi; production moved to Monte San Giusto seven years later. Now part of Manifatture Italiane under Dolce & Gabbana's control, still family-managed by the founders' children.
Best for Luxury shoes, contemporary design
Fabi was founded in 1965 in Montegranaro, in Italy's Marche region, by brothers Elisio and Enrico Fabi, working alongside their wives Gina and Vilia. Marche had long been a dense cluster of small-scale leather and footwear workshops, and Fabi began as one such family operation. Seven years after founding, the factory relocated to the nearby town of Monte San Giusto, in the province of Macerata, where production remains based today. Continuous investment in craftsmanship and materials pushed the brand into export markets starting in the 1980s, the same decade in which Alessia and Flaminio Fabi (Enrico's children) and Emanuele and Cinzia Fabi (Elisio's children) took over day-to-day management, opening branded stores as far afield as Moscow and Dubai. In 1993 the company added a dedicated women's footwear line to its original menswear-led collections. Fabi marked 60 years in business in 2025, and in 2024 its Barracuda sneaker line drew coverage at the Pitti Uomo trade fair as a growth driver, credited by the company to Italian materials and manufacturing. The house has since come under Manifatture Italiane, a manufacturing group controlled by Dolce & Gabbana, while continuing to operate from its original Marche base.
Parabiago / Lombardy / Online
Italian shoemakers since 1953 in Parabiago, producing handcrafted luxury footwear with Goodyear-based construction and international boutiques.
Best for Brera loafers and welted classics.
Fratelli Rossetti was founded in 1953 by Renzo Rossetti in Parabiago, a historic shoemaking center on the outskirts of Milan. The company was officially established in 1955 by brothers Renzo and Renato Rossetti, both born in Sanguinetto near Verona. The house specializes in luxury handcrafted Italian footwear for men and women, including loafers, sneakers, pumps, and slip-ons, complemented by bags and belts. The brand employs a reinterpreted Goodyear construction method that delivers greater flexibility, lightness, and comfort while maintaining authentic wearing character. The company has grown from Renzo and his wife Lisetta's original operation to be managed by the second generation—brothers Diego, Dario, and Luca Rossetti. Fratelli Rossetti maintains international boutiques and offers e-commerce with free shipping on orders exceeding $500.
Italy
Garmont makes footwear for hiking, approach, mountaineering and ski touring, with models organised by terrain and support. Detailed fit and use guidance matters here because the range spans flexible trail shoes to rigid technical boots.
Best for Italian hiking and ski-touring boots from Montebelluna, Italy's boot-making capital.
San Mauro Pascoli / Online
Luxury footwear house founded in 2006 by Gianvito Rossi, son of designer Sergio Rossi, handmaking shoes in its own San Mauro Pascoli factory - home of the signature Gianvito 105 pump, built in roughly 60 hand steps.
Best for The perfect plain pump.
Gianvito Rossi grew up on the factory floor of San Mauro Pascoli — son of Sergio Rossi, raised among lasts and heel blocks in Italy's shoemaking capital — and founded his own house in 2006 with an almost monastic brief: the perfect plain pump, and nothing that distracts from it. The Gianvito 105 is the result and the flagship: a single-sole stiletto of roughly sixty hand operations, cut so clean it photographs like a line drawing.
The catalogue extends the discipline rather than breaking it — the Plexi's transparent panel, suede boots with couture-grade fit, sandals reduced to two straps and conviction. No logos, no hardware theatrics; the brand identifier is the silhouette itself. Red carpets adopted the shoes precisely because they defer to the dress — every pair still passing through his own hands' standard.
Production stays in his own San Mauro Pascoli factory, family-run, unhurried. Where his father's generation built the Italian heel's drama, Gianvito built its restraint — the shoemaker's shoemaker, selling perfection with the volume turned all the way down.
Abruzzo, Italy
Women's leather footwear brand founded in Australia in 1993 by Barry Cheetham, drawing on his background in Brazilian-manufactured shoes and sandals. The Cheetham family sold the label to Perth-based footwear group PC Brands in 2024; design and sourcing are Australian-led, not Italian.
Best for Honest Italian leather footwear made in Abruzzo, on the Adriatic side.
Gino Ventori was founded in 1993 by Barry Cheetham, who brought experience in the footwear trade - including a focus on Brazilian-manufactured shoes - into a new brand aimed at women's leather footwear in Australia and New Zealand. In 2024, the Cheetham family sold Gino Ventori to PC Brands, a Perth-based family-owned footwear group, with Barry Cheetham retiring from the brand. Gino Ventori's own site and retail partners consistently identify it as an Australian-founded and Australian-run label rather than an Italian one.
Italy
Specialist shirtmaker producing impeccably crafted button-down and one-piece collar shirts since 1960. Modena-based with Japanese fabric sourcing.
Best for BD collar polos; One-piece collar shirts, Oxford shirts
Marche, Italy
Family-run footwear brand founded 1979 by Giuseppe Petrelli in Italy's Marche shoemaking region; design now guided by sons Luca and Sauro Petrelli, with minimalist, handcrafted styles.
Best for Artisan shoes, minimal design
Halmanera was founded in 1979 by Giuseppe Petrelli, who had previously managed other footwear companies before starting his own family-run label in the Marche region of Italy, an area with a long shoemaking tradition. The Petrelli family stays closely involved in production, personally overseeing leather selection, cutting, assembly and finishing. The brand's design direction favors essential, minimalist shoes for women intended to break from conventional style codes. Now more than four decades old, the company continues under the guidance of Giuseppe's sons, Luca and Sauro Petrelli, who have kept the founding family's hands-on approach central to the business.
Via Giuseppe Orlandi 34-36, Anacapri, Capri
Run by Vincenzo and Luca, this Anacapri boutique hand-makes sandals and shoes, from thong and jewelled styles to bridal pairs, friulane and moccasins. Each is crafted in Italy.
Best for Handmade sandals and shoes, custom pairs
Ziano di Fiemme / Dolomites / Online
Dolomites bootmaker founded in 1928 in Ziano di Fiemme by Narciso Delladio, who made leather boots for local lumberjacks and farmers; still Delladio family-owned, known since the 1980s for its purple-and-yellow climbing shoes.
Best for Climbing shoes and alpine boots.
La Sportiva began in 1928 in Ziano di Fiemme, a village in the Dolomites' Val di Fiemme, when Narciso Delladio started making customized leather boots and clogs for local lumberjacks and farmers. During the Second World War he built custom mountaineering boots for soldiers, and post-war demand grew enough that he hired staff and founded Calzoleria Sportiva. His son Francesco expanded the business through the 1950s, presenting the La Sportiva collection at the Milan Fair before it spread across Europe. The brand's defining commercial moment came in the 1980s with its purple-and-yellow climbing shoe. As demand kept outgrowing its facilities, the company moved into a new, modern factory in Ziano in 1996. La Sportiva remains 100% owned by the Delladio family and now distributes in more than 80 countries, having marked its 90th anniversary in 2018.
Marche, Italy
Marche region shoe valley factory store — Italian footwear from the district that manufactures footwear for major international luxury brands.
Best for Footwear, Italian-made
Lancioti De Verzi represents the craft traditions of Le Marche (Marche), Italy's primary shoe manufacturing region. Located in Sant'Elpidio a Mare within the Il Castagno Brand Village retail cluster, the store showcases footwear produced within the Marche Shoes Valley—an area recognized globally for craftsmanship dating to 1901. The Marche district supplies footwear to many recognizable luxury brands (Nero Giardini, Hogan, Tod's, Bikkembergs, La Martina, Loriblu) and functions as one of the world's most significant shoemaking centers. Lancioti De Verzi operates as both a factory store and retail showcase, blending direct sales with cultural representation of regional manufacturing heritage. Each pair emphasizes meticulous attention to detail and traditional construction methods refined over more than a century. The store positions itself within the broader "Shoe Valley" tourist economy, attracting both direct consumers seeking factory-direct pricing and visitors exploring Marche's industrial heritage. The combination of production expertise and retail accessibility makes the location a significant outlet for regional makers.
Italy
Alessio Berto’s artisanal circle — hand-dyed leather shoes and clothing of process worship.
Best for Hand-dyed leather shoes
Porto Sant'Elpidio, Marche, Italy
Founded in the early 1970s in Porto Sant'Elpidio by Graziano Cuccù, who remains the brand's stylist, this Italian shoemaker built its name on plaited leather-strip sandals before a 1978 sales boom of 110,000 pairs and, in the 1980s, crystal-embellished 'jewel sandals' that led to its 1996 signature 'golden shoe.'
Best for Luxury shoes, sneakers
Loriblu was founded in the early 1970s in Porto Sant'Elpidio, in Italy's Marche region, by Graziano Cuccù, who has directed the brand's style and collections since its start and today runs the company with his wife, CEO Annarita Pilotti. The label's early identity was built on a distinctive plaited-leather-strip sandal, and its commercial breakthrough came in 1978, when the company sold 110,000 pairs of shoes. In the 1980s Loriblu developed what it calls the 'jewel sandal,' using rhinestones, crystals and Swarovski stones to bring a more ornamented, evening-wear character to its footwear, a direction that culminated in 1996 with a signature style the company calls the 'golden shoe.' Loriblu still manufactures at its Porto Sant'Elpidio headquarters, which includes a factory and showrooms in a building the company calls the Diamond Palace, continuing to produce men's and women's shoes under Cuccù's ongoing creative direction.
Trevignano, Veneto, Italy
Italian sportswear brand launched in 1973 in Montebelluna, Veneto (Treviso province), by the Caberlotto family, starting with tennis shoes before expanding into basketball, volleyball, athletics and soccer footwear and apparel.
Best for Retro sport sneakers; Safety workwear
Lotto Sport Italia traces its footwear-industry roots to 1939, when the Caberlotto family established a business in Montebelluna, a town in Italy's Veneto region long known as a footwear manufacturing district. The Lotto brand itself formally launched as a sports footwear maker in June 1973, starting with tennis shoes before expanding within its first decade into basketball, volleyball, track and field, and soccer categories. The 1980s brought its first football boot lines and sponsorship deals with players including John Newcombe. The company remains headquartered in the Montebelluna/Trevignano area of Veneto's Treviso province, within the same regional footwear-manufacturing cluster where it began.
Varese / Italy
Macchi Varese 1941 has outfitted three generations of customers with shoes and outdoor footwear from its Corso Matteotti storefront in Varese, stocking brands such as Birkenstock, Patagonia, and Blundstone for men, women, and children. The shop pairs its physical showroom with an online catalog and free Italian shipping.
Best for Birkenstock, Patagonia and Blundstone footwear
Via dell'Inferno
Founded in 2008 by shoemakers Massimo and Giovanni, Max e Giò makes handmade leather shoes in a small workshop on Via dell'Inferno. Customers choose leathers and lasts for bespoke and ready-made footwear.
Best for Handmade and bespoke leather shoes
Marche, Italy
Italian sneaker brand founded 1970 in Barletta, Puglia, popular for its bright colors and thick soles in the late 1970s before closing in the mid-1980s. Revived in 2012 by a new ownership group working with the Goldenfit shoe factory.
Best for Sneakers, casual
Mecap launched in 1970 in Barletta, in the Puglia region of southern Italy, with the goal of bringing a new type of Italian footwear, comfortable, well made and fashion-forward, to the domestic market. The brand's sneakers became especially popular in the second half of the 1970s, known for bright colors, a raised sole, and pricing that made them accessible compared with other Italian sportswear brands of the period.
Poor investment decisions led the original company to close by the mid-1980s, and the Mecap name went dormant for roughly three decades. Around 2012, a group of younger entrepreneurs, Fabio Manfredi, Pierpaolo Peroni and Lorenzo Verginelli, working together with the Gianfrancesco family, revived the brand out of nostalgia for the original 1970s sneakers. Dario Gianfrancesco partnered with the Goldenfit shoe factory to relaunch production.
The relaunched Mecap has continued to develop the product technically, introducing insoles made from a natural, hypoallergenic and biodegradable compound designed to mold to the wearer's foot while remaining breathable and flexible, alongside the brand's continued 'Made in Italy' manufacturing claim. The company today operates out of Barletta, still describing its core identity around comfort-first, fashion-forward sneakers in the spirit of its 1970s original line.
Vigevano / Lombardy / Online
Vigevano shoemaker since 1946, producing high-end Italian leather footwear using traditional construction methods in the Lombardy shoe city.
Best for Classic Vigevano dress shoes.
Moreschi was established in October 1946 in Vigevano by Mario Moreschi, following his apprenticeship at RIV, a historic shoe factory in the same city. The company began as Calzaturificio Biellese with two partners, deliberately pursuing high-quality artisanal production rather than volume market manufacturing—initially producing approximately twenty pairs daily. Mario Moreschi's commitment to craftsmanship and precision set the brand's trajectory. Upon Mario's death in November 1957, his son Gian Beppe assumed leadership and expanded the company's international presence significantly, establishing Moreschi as a luxury footwear name globally. Vigevano, known as Italy's primary shoemaking district, provided both the technical expertise and the supply chains necessary for sustained quality. The brand continues producing premium men's footwear using leather working methods refined over seven decades, maintaining headquarters and production in Vigevano to this day.
Montebelluna / Online
Naglev focuses on Montebelluna boot country, one-piece Kevlar-upper hikers from the Dolomite shoe district. Production is associated with Italy, while the range centers on kevlar hikers.
Best for Kevlar hikers
Italy
Nordica focuses on Montebelluna boots-to-skis authority, the Speedmachine and Enforcer from Italy’s ski-boot valley. Production is associated with Italy, while the range centers on skis, boots.
Best for Skis, boots
Marche, Italy
Founded in 1998 in Montegranaro, Marche, by Roberto Di Rosa — from a family of shoemakers — Officine Creative hand-dyes, washes and burnishes Italian leather through more than 100 production steps to give each pair a distressed, lived-in patina.
Best for Artisan shoes, washed leather
Officine Creative was founded in 1998 in Montegranaro, a shoemaking town in Italy's Marche region, by Roberto Di Rosa, who came from a family with a shoemaking background and set out to merge traditional craft with a more contemporary design language. The brand's name translates to 'creative workshops,' reflecting its artisanal positioning. Its signature technique is hand-dyeing: leathers are washed, burnished and layered with dye in a process the company describes as running to more than 100 separate steps per pair, producing an intentionally aged, patinated finish that distinguishes it from conventionally finished leather shoes. Marche is a recognized center of Italian shoemaking on the Adriatic coast, and Officine Creative's production draws on the region's concentration of skilled tanning and shoemaking labor. Since its founding the brand has built an international wholesale and retail presence, positioning its footwear within the higher end of the contemporary (rather than strictly classical/bespoke) Italian shoe market, sold through boutiques and its own e-commerce site.
Marche, Italy
Marche-region leather shoemaker whose OpenClosed line launched in the early 2000s out of REFAC srl, a manufacturer founded in 1990s Civitanova Marche; produces vintage-finished boots and loafers alongside private-label footwear made for designers including Rick Owens and Ann Demeulemeester.
Best for Vintage leather shoes, artisan
Open Closed traces to REFAC srl, a shoe manufacturer founded in the 1990s in Civitanova Marche, in Italy's Marche region — one of the country's historic footwear-manufacturing districts, also home to houses such as Santoni and Bontoni. The OpenClosed brand itself was launched at the start of the 2000s as the company's line of vintage-finished leather footwear: boots, derbies and loafers built with hand-applied aged and distressed leather treatments rather than the smoother finishes typical of formal dress shoemaking. Beyond its own-name collection, Open Closed has worked as a manufacturing partner for designer labels, producing footwear for Rick Owens and Ann Demeulemeester among others — part of a wider Marche-region pattern in which small family-run factories combine limited in-house collections with private-label production for larger international brands. The company remains headquartered in the industrial zone of Civitanova Marche. Its retail identity leans on the vintage, worn-in character of its leather rather than seasonal design statements, and it is stocked internationally by retailers specializing in avant-garde and directional menswear, including Canada's Gravitypope.
Marche, Italy
Contemporary brand relaunched in 2008 in Montegranaro, Marche, built on a family shoemaking workshop dating to 1975; named after founder Gianluca Evangelista's mother Anna Pantanetti, whose own family ran a Marche shoe factory.
Best for Hand-finished shoes, patina
Montegranaro / Marche / Online
Montegranaro, Marche shoe factory founded 1885 by Luigi Mazza; the Premiata sneaker brand launched 1991 under fourth-generation Mazza family leadership (CEO Graziano Mazza). Evolved from the 'Endless' line (1960s) into a contemporary luxury sneaker house.
Best for Heritage-factory sneakers.
Premiata was founded in 1885 by Luigi Mazza in Montegranaro, a town in Italy's Marche region long known as a center of Italian shoe manufacturing. The Mazza family has run the business across generations: in the 1960s Vincenzo Mazza created a line called 'Endless,' and in 1981 his son Graziano Mazza took over and industrialized production. The Premiata brand itself launched in 1991, introducing innovations such as rubber-soled comfort construction, and has since developed into a contemporary luxury sneaker house known for named collections. Premiata is now run by the fourth generation of the Mazza family.
Positano / Italy
Safari Club has made leather sandals and loafers for women, men and children in Positano for more than fifty years, selling from its Via della Tartana workshop and shop. The collection also ships worldwide via Mail Boxes Etc. and can be ordered through the online store.
Best for Handmade leather sandals and loafers for the family
Italy
Scarpa has made mountain boots in Asolo, Italy since 1938, building a range spanning alpinism, ski touring, and racing footwear. Its boots include the Phantom for alpinism, the Maestrale for touring, and F1 models for racing.
Best for Mountain footwear
Marche, Italy
Small artisan workshop making hand-finished Italian dress shoes and sneakers in the Marche shoemaking region, capping output near 25 pairs a day with hand-colored True Grain leather from France.
Best for Marche-made leather shoes and hand patina
Scarpe di Bianco is a small-batch Italian footwear maker producing formal dress shoes, loafers, monk straps and luxury sneakers using Norwegian and Goodyear-welted, as well as Blake Rapid, construction methods. Production is described as acutely artisanal, capped at no more than 25 pairs per day. The brand's Premium collection uses True Grain leather sourced from France, hand-colored by craftspeople so that each pair carries small natural variations. It is associated with Italy's Marche region - long a center of Italian shoe manufacturing around towns such as Montegranaro, Civitanova Marche and Porto Sant'Elpidio.
Marche, Italy
Bespoke shoemaker founded 1971 by Silvano Lattanzi, who trained in master workshops in London, Paris and Milan before opening his own atelier in Sant'Elpidio a Mare, Marche; opened a Rome shop on Via Bocca di Leone, near Via Condotti, in 1992.
Best for Ultra-Luxury Shoes
Silvano Lattanzi grew up in Sant'Elpidio a Mare, in Italy's Marche region, where his parents worked in a shoe factory; he followed them into the trade at age 11 and left school three years later. At 21 he founded his own company, Zintala, before training further in the workshops of some of the last master shoemakers of London, Paris and Milan, absorbing the technical and stylistic grounding for handmade, made-to-measure shoes. His first collections, shown in 1975, broke with the era's black-and-brown convention, introducing antiqued reds, blues, yellows and greens mixed like an impressionist painting -- a provocation in menswear at the time. Clients from sport, film and theatre became early followers, and home fittings for this circle led to the house's 'Alto su misura' (high made-to-measure) service. In 1992 the company opened its first retail shop on Via Bocca di Leone, close to Rome's Via Condotti shopping street. In 2001, Silvano's son Paolo and daughter Roberta formally joined the business, taking on its international development.
Italy / Online
Sicilian sneaker startup founded in Agrigento in August 2023 by architect Calogero Romano, making biodegradable shoes from hemp, cork, coconut fiber and vegetable-tanned leather.
Best for Biodegradable sneakers designed and made in italy
Sneark S.r.l. is a startup formally established on 2 August 2023 in Agrigento, Sicily, founded by architect Calogero 'Lello' Romano. Its stated mission is to produce sneakers made entirely from natural, biodegradable materials - hemp, cork, coconut fibers and vegetable-tanned leather, including a partnership with tanner Ecotan for a biocircular leather. The company has been recognized locally for sustainability, including a 'Top of the PID' first prize and recognition from environmental group Legambiente, and was featured among six emerging labels in the Italian Trade Agency's Young Italian Start Up program at Pitti Uomo. Its current lineup centers on two models, the ARK 70 and the 1991, both priced at 320 euros.
Italy
Giancarlo Zanatta’s Montebelluna group — the Moon Boot, benchmark Mach1 ski boots, and the Forge trekking line from Italy’s bootmaking valley.
Best for Ski boots and mountain footwear from Montebelluna’s finest.
Marche / Online
The Gommino driving shoe from the Della Valle family's Marche factories — Italian casual-luxury leather. Diego Della Valle named the company J.P. Tod's in 1978, taking the name from a Boston, Massachusetts telephone book; the 'J.P.' prefix was dropped in 1999.
Best for Gommino drivers and weekend leather luxury.
The Della Valle family made shoes in the Marche from the 1920s; Diego Della Valle's stroke of clarity in the late 1970s created Tod's around a single object — the Gommino, a driving moccasin soled with 133 rubber pebbles, designed for the pedal and adopted for everything else. The Gommino became Italian sprezzatura in footwear form: aristocrats, industrialists, and Agnelli himself wore them as the uniform of dressed-down authority. The house, still family-controlled and headquartered in the Marche where production remains, extended into loafers, bags — the D bag among them — and a broader leather goods wardrobe, and has underwritten major Italian heritage restorations including the Colosseum. The Gommino in suede is the essential purchase, worn sockless in the canonical manner. Few houses are so completely explained by one shoe; fewer still made the explanation this durable.
Size the Gommino snug — suede relaxes with wear — and expect to resole eventually; the pebbled sole is consumable by design and the house offers replacement.
Italy
Italian safety-footwear brand launched end of 2005 by P.F. Uzzeni (whose Almar Group traces to 1950); U-Power Group formed 2006 in Paruzzaro, Novara; its Red Lion line, launched 2017, became Europe's top-selling safety-shoe range by 2019.
Best for Safety shoes
U-Power's roots go back to 1950, when P.F. Uzzeni founded the Almar Group near Milan, initially making athletic footwear. At the end of 2005, Uzzeni founded U-Invest specifically to produce, distribute, and market safety shoes under the U-Power brand, and U-Power Group was formally established in Paruzzaro, in the province of Novara, in 2006. The company built its market position through the Red Lion range, launched in 2017; by 2019 U-Power had become the European market leader in safety shoes and boots. Today U-Power Group employs roughly 4,400 people and produces about 4.5 million pairs of footwear annually for more than 7,500 business customers, supplying protective footwear and workwear primarily to industrial and construction markets across Europe.
Italy
Founded in Torrebelvicino, Vicenza, in 1929 by cobbler Giuseppe Zamberlan, who worked with mountaineer Vitale Bramani on the rubber sole that became Vibram; still family-run under third-generation siblings Marco and Maria Zamberlan.
Best for Hiking boots, leather
Calzaturificio Zamberlan was founded in 1929 in Torrebelvicino, at the foot of the Piccole Dolomiti in the Vicenza province, by Giuseppe Zamberlan, a cobbler who set out to improve mountain footwear. He worked with mountaineer Vitale Bramani — who would go on to found Vibram — on developing the rubber lug sole that gave hikers better grip on rough terrain, a collaboration that shaped the sole technology Zamberlan still builds around today. Giuseppe's son Emilio expanded the brand into international markets starting in the 1970s, and the company remains family-run under the third generation, siblings Marco and Maria Zamberlan. Production still uses Norwegian-welted construction, a technique in which the upper, welt, and midsole are stitched together in a way that keeps the sole resoleable, on boots such as the Tofane GTX RR. The current range spans hunting boots (the Adak series), fast hiking shoes (Exotrail GTX), lightweight trekking boots (Devero Low GTX), and Vibram-soled lifestyle boots, most built with Gore-Tex waterproofing. Ninety years after the company's founding, in 2019, Zamberlan marked the anniversary while continuing to make boots at the original Vicenza-area facility.
Trivero / Piedmont / Online
From its 1910 Trivero wool mill to global menswear power — fabric-first tailoring and the Oasi Zegna forest. In the 1930s the founder planted about 500,000 conifers around the mill; the third generation established Oasi Zegna (c. 100 km²) in 1993.
Best for Suiting fabrics, Triple Stitch shoes, and refined menswear.
Most fashion houses buy their cloth. Zegna is its cloth. The house began in 1910 not as a tailor but as a wool mill in Trivero, in the Biella mountains where Italian wool-making concentrated its genius — and everything Zegna has become grows upward from that thread. The Lanificio still weaves in Piedmont; the suits, the Triple Stitch shoes that carried the house into the weekend, the entire menswear power built on top — all of it stands on fabric the family makes itself, fiber to finish.
That vertical truth changes what the brand means. When Zegna promises quality, it is not vouching for a supplier; it is signing its own work at every stage. The mill's pursuit of finer and finer fibers — the endless refinement of wool that behaves like a liquid — is the house's actual R&D, done in the same valley for over a century.
And then there is the founder's largest product. Around the mill, Ermenegildo Zegna planted a forest — Oasi Zegna, a mountainside of conifers and rhododendrons grown over decades into a vast natural park, free to enter, older than most of the company's competitors. It reframes everything: a wool house that understood a century ago that its raw material was landscape, and invested accordingly. Cloth, clothes, and the mountain that grows both — Zegna's supply chain is visible from space, and it is green.
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Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗