TOD’S TOWN
f the American dream is about giving everyone the opportunity to get rich, then the Italian dream is about giving everyone the opportunity to live the good life. Rooted in homemade food, delicious wine, hot sun and an effortless sense of style, the Italian dream is propped up by the unbreakable bonds of family and community. For Diego Della Valle, the owner of the luxury leather brand Tod’s, famous for its driving shoes studded with distinctive rubber nipples, the Italian dream is not just a way of life. It is also a way of doing business. The 61-year-old luxury titan is one of Italy’s most dynamic businessmen. With his swept-back white hair and signature upturned shirt collars, he is as recognisable to Italians as Richard Branson is to Brits. Della Valle has built a billion-dollar footwear and fashion empire, flies everywhere in his private jet or helicopter (one passenger likened its interior to the inside of a handbag), owns the Fiorentina football club, has an enviable contemporary art collection, is the custodian of John F Kennedy’s mahogany motor yacht, Marlin, sits on the board of Ferrari and LVMH and is funding the restoration of the Colosseum. Forbes estimates his wealth at more than $1.7 billion and yet there is no place he would rather be than the eastern Italian town of Casette d’Ete. In the Marche region, it nestles on a fertile plain overlooking the Adriatic Sea. The area is known for its shoemaking, with
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more than 600 leather factories producing the kind of handmade designer shoes that have made Italy a global fashion powerhouse. “The market is everywhere in the world,” Della Valle once told an Italian journalist, “but life is in Casette d’Ete.” Casette d’Ete is unofficially known as Tod’s Town: 900 of its 4,000 inhabitants work in the Tod’s factory and those who do not still send their children to the immaculate primary school Della Valle built. He also refurbished the community centre and built a free creche for his workers, which is unusual in Italy. He sees his utopian approach as natural: “We are in the community and the people support us a lot. It is the nature of our family to do that. It is not a big sacrifice. We move one finger and we support a thousand people who struggle.” Della Valle grew up in Casette d’Ete. His home and gleaming white marble state-of-the-art headquarters, designed by his architect wife, Barbara, are also in the town and it is where he raised his two sons, Emanuele, 40, and Filippo, 17, because he wanted them to have the same kind of childhood as he did. “It was an easy and happy life because for us the village was like Disney World,” he says of the warm days spent playing football with friends and fishing in the river. Della Valle’s grandfather Filippo started his shoemaking company in the 1920s. When Diego’s father Dorino took over, he began producing shoes for the big American department
Claudia Croft / The Sunday Times / The Interview People
The titan of Tod’s fashion empire believes in staying grounded. He still lives and works in the village where he grew up