Velasca, at the peak of artisanal and sustainable fashion

It bears the name of the great architectural icon designed by Gruppo BBPR that has characterised the Milan skyline since the 1950s. It was not a random choice, that of Enrico Casati and Jacopo Sebastio, who in 2013 moved from finance to the world of fashion, founding Velasca: not just a brand but a manifesto for all-Italian manufacturing wisdom. 

By Achille Perego | On PRINTlovers 93

First came men's shoes, then accessories, from shoe kits to ties and belts. Then moccasins, lace-ups and boots for women, and by the end of this year also the launch of the total-look line offering, with the same formula, clothing too; from shirts to knitwear, from outerwear to trousers, to t-shirts.

Velasca's is a path of success in the name of Made in Italy. From the raw materials to the craftsmanship of production in districts such as the Marche region of Montegranaro to manufacture shoes or the Macerata, Alessandria and Veneto regions for packaging and prints. The name Velasca recalls the famous and iconic Tower of the Lombard capital. And it is the brand name of the company founded in 2013 in Milan by Enrico Casati and Jacopo Sebastio. With a courageous choice, two young managers decided to move from the world of finance to the world of fashion with clear ideas in their heads. That is, to bring the beauty and uniqueness of Italian know-how to the world. How? By putting high-quality, strictly handcrafted shoes on the market at sustainable prices, thanks to an innovative direct sales model - from the artisans to the customers without intermediation - and by leveraging an omnichannel approach starting only with e-commerce then also building a network of direct shops.

'It all originated from a random episode,' began Sebastio, CEO of Velasca. 'Enrico was in Singapore on business and needed a pair of elegant shoes for an event. Since I also had to leave for Asia, I bought a pair in a boutique in Milan, put them in my backpack and brought them along.' And then? 'When we met, thinking about this unusual delivery, we said to each other: why not turn this episode into a business so that beautiful handmade Italian shoes can be sold and distributed worldwide, not just in Singapore?'

So in 2013, Velasca came into being after thinking about how and where to produce the shoes. Enrico Casati and Jacopo Sebastio travelled around Italy and eventually chose the best – by the artisans of Montegranaro in the footwear district of the Marche. Here the approximately 100,000 pairs of shoes for men and, since last year, also for women - sold both through the online channel and in the company's employee shops - are still made by hand.

The €60,000 turnover achieved in the first months of business rose to €200,000 in September 2014, and then there has been a crescendo that, after the inevitable slowdown in 2020 due to the effects of the pandemic, has seen a substantial recovery. Growth rates in these early months of 2022 are 80% over 2021 and 40% over January 2020, when the Covid-19 emergency had not yet broken out, and will reach an estimated €18 million turnover this year, compared to €13 million in 2021 and €8 million in 2020. These sales and revenues have been produced thanks to 65 direct employees, half in the shops and the rest in the Milan headquarters, and related employment of around 900 people. This level of employment is destined to grow with the launch of the clothing line planned for the autumn, replicating the same winning formula: artisan production. The choice has been - as was the case with Montegranaro for footwear – the Neapolitan tailoring tradition for shirts, ties and trousers, the Veneto tradition for jackets and coats, and the Marche and Emilia Romagna districts for knitwear.

The first shop for women's shoes was opened in recent months in Milan, in Piazza Giovine Italia, as was the first for men's footwear. 'Not just a simple shop,' Casati and Sebastio recall, 'but a meeting place, with vintage furniture, wooden flooring, hand-painted wallpaper, vintage porcelain, flowers and plants where you can choose your shoes while sipping herbal tea, coffee or a glass of good wine, reading a magazine and touching Velasca's shoes with your own hands.', After Milan, two more shops have been opened for the women's line, in Turin and Rome. At the same time, the expansion of the retail network will also see a new shop in Brescia for men's footwear. The aim is to reach 18 shops, including those abroad in Paris, London and Elizabeth Street in New York. This space opened in the autumn of 2021 with the strengthening in southern Italy with the Naples shop following the Palermo one, where, among symbols of Made in Italy, such as an Olivetti typewriter and a Brionvega television set, one can enjoy the design and craftsmanship of Velasca footwear.

After all, the relationship between Velasca and its artisans responds to the values of sustainability pursued by the company, which also means setting up orders and contracts that do not "strangle" craftsmanship but enhance it. This commitment is demonstrated by even putting the photo of the craftsman who made the shoes in the box in which the shoes are packaged and shipped. And the great attention paid to the issue of sustainability, from the use of green energy to environmentally friendly packaging, is confirmed by the fact that by 2022 Velasca will become a 'benefit company', the first step towards obtaining B Corp certification.

Velasca took a reverse route. First, it started with e-commerce, by which, with its partner FedEx, Velasca can deliver its shoes worldwide within three to five days of ordering, and in Italy, within two days and even the next day if the order is sent before 11 am. Then came the shops. 'At the beginning,' Sebastio and Casati confirm, 'we only operated through online sales without any intermediaries so that we could put on the market men's shoes of high-quality craftsmanship but sold at about half the price of the competition in the same product range. And this created a real community - a community from which then arose the need and desire to have a space not only to wear Velasca footwear but also to experience a special moment for meeting. A moment to share the value of Italian savoir-faire and its excellence, for which we have travelled around Italy combining Velasca's philosophy with that of the local areas, from San Daniele ham to Abruzzo saffron or Apulian ceramics.' And in the local areas, from Veneto to the Alessandria area to the Macerata area, partners have also been found for printing and paper products.

Selling a brand means proposing a buying experience even before a pair of shoes, albeit of high quality. This is why Velasca shoes are packaged in eco-friendly boxes made of recycled cardboard, inside which you will also find the travel bag for the shoes, made of recycled cotton, a welcome letter, congratulations from the two founders and a photo of the artisan who handmade the shoes.

To address customers, old and new and especially young, explains Chiara Bonardi, Velasca's Head of UX and UI, 'we thought of an aspirational communication, also presenting ourselves on social media as a friendly brand with a human face.' And that face, with Polaroid photos, is of exceptional witnesses like the artisans who make Velasca shoes, while the friendship relationship is maintained and nurtured through a timely newsletter.

If a young brand originating in the digital age could not, and cannot, but communicate through online channels, this does not mean that Velasca does not also resort, with success and satisfaction, to the world of printing and paper - with an innovative approach. For example, says Bonardi, 'transforming the drawings that children and parents sent us at the time of lockdowns into ideas for shoebox packaging'. With some of these drawings - chosen from hundreds - four lines of limited edition boxes were made. Also innovative was the decision not to print classic photo brochures or traditional product catalogues but to design a unique flyer, the 'non-guide' for female customers. The 'non-guide', in winter and summer versions, is both sent with online orders and is on hand in the stores. Designed and printed like a notebook, there are blank pages for personal notes but also tips on how to combine looks according to the time of day and even, for the Milan shop, a city map with shopping and leisure suggestions, from restaurants to florists.

'For the shoe boxes right from the start,' adds Velasca's head of graphics and design, 'it was thought that they should not be too luxurious but, respecting the environment by using recycled paper, characterise at the same time the content and the image of the brand. So, with the sale at that time only through e-commerce of the men's shoes, we thought of a kind of gift box. And so we enriched the boxes with a bow, with the choice of glossy blue, Velasca's institutional colour, just for the lid, and the rest in recycled Havana Kraft paper. An elegant but at the same time clean choice, repeated with Kiwi green paper for the boxes of the women's footwear line, putting only the company logo and the words' handmade in Italy' on the packaging.'

The same graphic and environmentally friendly choice was used for the e-commerce packaging, reduced to the bare minimum. This reduction will see future shipments of the new total-look line use boxes only for outerwear and rigid paper envelopes for shirts and knitwear. In addition to reducing the packaging size, Velasca uses recycled cardboard packaging: blue for men's shoes and white for women's shoes. Inside, customers can find the envelope containing the invoice and instructions for any returns facilitated by the presence of a double adhesive strip and with an inscription ('The wait is over') that characterises, says Bonardi, what Velasca wants to be for its customers: a special (friend) company.