Few brands are as wedded to the concept of craftsmanship as Tod's, whose creative collaboration, The Art of Craftmanship – A Project by Venetian Masters, launched with panache on Friday night.
Dozens of luxury brands arrived in Venice this week, when the Biennale opened in the lagoon city, but none came together as powerfully as Tod's, which was also a partner of the Italian Pavilion, inside the Giardini della Biennale, the nerve center of the largest artistic celebration in the world.
Tod's celebrated its commitment to fine arts and noble craftsmanship with an elegant dinner Thursday night inside the recently restored Scuola Grande di San Rocco. Where Andrea Bocelli sang beautifully beneath a remarkable series of Tintoretto paintings of Old and New Testament parables. And the executive director of Tod's, Diego Della Valle, and his brother Andrea received the Minister of Culture of Italy, Gennaro Sangiuliano, the president of the Biennale, Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, and the actor Adrien Brody, among others.
The next day, Tod's Art of Craftmanship – A Project by Venetian Masters opened at the Biennale's other key venue, the Arsenale, a massive red-brick Renaissance shipyard. Where the 10 local artisans – like a glass blower and a gold engraver or a lamp maker and the artisan who created the masks for Eyes wide Shut – proudly showed his ideas. All inspired by the brand's iconic studded loafer, the Gommino.
“Our strategy is to focus on quality, craftsmanship, the skill of artisans and the Italian lifestyle. With the idea that it is essential to take these gifts in new directions, in this case with these incredible artisans,” explained Della Valle, while touring the installation.
Like Roberto Beltrami, a glassblower from the island of Murano, the lagoon's glass production center, who showed off a beautiful hand-blown honey-colored glass Gommino.
“Technically, it was quite difficult to shape the glass to get the right shape for a Gommino and add the glass mullions to it. But that's what made the project so exciting. “We were breaking new ground,” Beltrami said enthusiastically.
Nearby wood craftsman Sebastiano Lunardelli combined strips of Tod's leather, rice paper and Canaletto walnut wood to develop an elegant five-sided lamp shaped like Bricco, the wooden columns to which gondolas are tied.
While screen printing artist Gianpaolo Fallani gave a live presentation of his technique, developing posters of the tools used to make the moccasin, in colors worthy of Andy Warhol: chartreuse, aqua, hot pink and violet.
Few artisans were more enthusiastic than Sergio Boldrin, maker of masks Eyes wide Shutwho presented eight fascinating masks adorned with semi-finished inserts and leather in Tod's signature warm colors.
The luxury brand even made reference to the gondola, thanks to Piero Dri and Saverio Pastor, two notable artisans who specialize in making Forcolas, the vertical support point of a gondolier's oar. The pair happily carving to life inside the Arsenale, as Dri showed off a Forcola carved as an arm with a stylized hand; and Pastor shaped his wooden trophy into a needle that rests on Forcola's arm.
Elsewhere, artist Lucio Bubacco twisted glass tubes to create a surreal sculpture that suggests a craftswoman, needle in hand, sewing a leather Gommino on a worktable. Although the largest works were by artists Federico Marangoni with a coil of red neon placed in front of the event façade, spinning on a spool of thread; and a giant aluminum sculpture of a Gommino complete with neon studs that hung above the heads of the hundreds of exhibition guests, who arrived by water taxi.
Tod's will eventually move these unique handcrafted pieces to a museum at its headquarters in Le Marche, to be “a message to all our staff of what is possible to create,” Della Valle explained.
“I think that for the new generation, being an artisan is a very noble decision. It is not a second level election. We have thousands and thousands of skilled craftsmen working for us and we are very proud of them. That is the message,” he stressed, standing next to a dazzling Gommino delicately finished in gold leaf, dreamed up by gold beaters Marino Menegazzo and Mario Berta.
To complete the Venetian moment, Tod's launched a limited edition collection dedicated to Venice: the iconic Gommino and the T Timeless shopping bag at Biennale 2024. Cool handmade masterpieces in colors that were tributes to Venice: in Titian red or in the deep blue that evokes the lagoon. The collection was available on April 19, exclusively in the new Venice boutique on Calle XXII Marzo and on tods.com.
A beautiful Annunciation by Titian was the centerpiece of Thursday's gala dinner at the Scuola San Rocco, where the famous tenor Bocelli won enthusiastic applause for a performance that included Nessun Dorma and The Mobile Donna.
“Everyone loves Andrea Bocelli. Especially in this incredibly beautiful building that many people and many tourists do not know about. I saw it last night for the first time in my life! “It is another occasion to present the fantastic jewels of our Italian culture,” enthused Della Valle, who oversees a group that includes Hogan, Roger Vivier, Fay and the couture brand Schiaparelli, which also organized a Venetian Heritage dinner in Venice this year. week.
Few cultural events attract as much attention as the Biennale. Its last edition attracted more than 800,000 visitors, despite taking place in the wake of the Covid pandemic. Thousands of art lovers flocked to Venice for the opening week of the Biennale, sending hotel prices soaring.
It has been a busy spring for Della Valle, who in February signed a deal with private equity firm L Catterton that valued his group at around four billion euros. But this weekend Della Valle, the doge of Italian luxury, focused on Venice and artistic creativity. After previously financing the restoration of the Colosseum in Rome and the La Scala opera house in Milan.
“We live under this fantastic Made in Italy umbrella, which is a guarantee of quality. The least a company like ours can do is support our culture,” concluded Doge Della Valle.
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