It’s 1916 and Luca Del Vecchio, a willing 16 year old boy from Castelnuovo di Conza, decides to start working as an apprentice shoemaker by an uncle of his, very happy to fnd a helper to train. After a while as an apprentice, Luca feels that it’s the time to start his own journey and decides to open Del Vecchio Group.
This decision will make history for many generations. At the beginning it was very tough for Luca, but his resilience and hard work will eventually pay off and year after year Del Vecchio Group becomes a very well esteemed workshop throughout the country, a place where the professional and personal life are intertwined, a point of reference for the whole family, meanwhile gladden by Luca’s wedding and the birth of Francesco.
Francesco grows up between leather and pins, learning his father’s craft and feeling the Passion for the shoeman profession growing inside of him. As years go by, Del Vecchio Group keeps growing, work tools change and even the old workshop is hit by the stream of progress. Luca was old by then, so it’s time for his son Francesco first and his grandson Gerardo later to succeed, as the Del Vecchio family tradition wants.
Before taking over his grandfather’s business, Gerardo travels a lot throughout Europe, learning new techniques, buying new machines and when he gets back home, he implements his ideas to make the family business grow. Even for Gerardo, then, comes the time to pass the torch to us, his elder sons, Luca and Orazio. Such as our predecessors, we grew up in the Bottega, we lived every difficult moment and we saw it prospering day after day.
Meanwhile, the desire to do our part to make it even bigger was growing inside of us. Today, Del Vecchio Group is a leader not only for its revolutionary services of dry cleaning and shoes and bag repairing, but also for the making and selling of handcrafted belts for man, leather accessories and many other items made by us, alongside a large selection of products for the foot and shoe care.
Compared to the distant 1916, everything changed in the Del Vecchio Group, we evolved, we diversified and widened our activities, including new selling tools. We no longer are that little cleaning and repairing shoe workshop, but a proper business with selling and collecting points all over the territory.