L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, JANUARY 26, 2023 www.italoamericano.org 16 L'Italo-Americano T he story of Luxot- tica is the epitome o f t h e A m e r i c a n Dream but it hap- pened in Italy. It is the largest eyewear-producing company in the world and, more likely than not, your own glasses are a Luxottica prod- uct, if you think it owns iconic brands like Persol, Ray-Ban, V o g u e , a n d p r o d u c e s f o r P r a d a , M i u M i u , C h a n e l , Burberry, Armani, Dolce & Gabbana, Tiffany, Versace, and Valentino. And if you get your glasses in Target or Sears, well, those are made by Luxottica, too. Luxottica was born from the dream of one man, Leonardo Del Vecchio - Milanese, class 1935. His beginnings weren't easy: his father, who was a veg- e t a b l e s t r e e t v e n d o r , d i e d b e f o r e L e o n a r d o w a s b o r n leaving the family in poverty, so much so he had to spend seven years of his childhood in an orphanage. As a teen, Del Vecchio became an apprentice in a workshop producing metal components: that's when he discovered a passion for design a n d e n g r a v i n g , r e a s o n f o r which he soon began following evening courses at the presti- gious Brera Academy of Fine Arts, in Milan. In 1958, Del Vecchio had his first solo exhibit, where he pre- sented his own eyewear com- p o n e n t s . O n l y t h r e e y e a r s later, in 1961, thanks to the financial help of two wealthy c l i e n t s , h e t r a n s f e r r e d h i s workshop and store - which counted 14 employees - to a small Alpine village in Veneto, Agordo. The choice wasn't m a d e b y c h a n c e , b e c a u s e Veneto was already known as a n i m p o r t a n t h u b f o r t h e development and commerce o f I t a l i a n c r a f t s m a n s h i p , especially jewelry. Del Vecchio never studied economy, but he soon under- stood the importance of pro- ducing everything in-house or, to say it like a businessper- son would, using vertical i n t e g r a t i o n : i t w a s a n epiphany, which also marked the moment when the name itself of the company, Luxotti- ca, was created. No name could be better for a company producing eyewear, as lux means "light" in Latin, and ottica means "optics" in Ital- ian. The 1960s were a time of great expansion, where more and more productive skills were added to the company's portfolio, including the pro- cessing of metals and plastic. By producing everything in- house, Luxottica managed to offer the market high-quality products at incredibly com- petitive prices. L e o n a r d o c o n t i n u e d t o build his vision of a fully inde- pendent company, that could take care of its products from beginning to end, with the acquisition of Italian distribu- tion company Scarrone in 1974. By the early 80s, Luxot- tica was well-established in Italy and began moving con- siderable steps towards inter- national expansion by open- i n g i t s f i r s t i n t e r n a t i o n a l office in Germany, in 1981. In 1988, it signed the first of many prestigious licensing agreements with Armani. By the mid-1990s, one-third of Luxottica's yearly sales came from sunglasses, so it made total sense to acquire Persol, a famous Italian sunglasses producer and, crucially, to invest in a different form of advertisement, specifically oriented towards the world of fashion and trends. Between the end of the 1990s and the early 2000s, L u x o t t i c a c o n t i n u e d i t s growth, by signing production a g r e e m e n t s w i t h B u l g a r i ( 1 9 9 6 ) , F e r r a g a m o a n d U n g a r o ( 1 9 9 8 ) , C h a n e l (1999), Prada and Versace (2003). In 2000, Luxottica entered the Milan stockmar- ket and in 2011, Leonardo Del Vecchio, that poor child from M i l a n , w h o h a d t o s p e n d most of his childhood in an o r p h a n a g e , w a s l i s t e d b y Forbes as the second richest man in Italy, after another self-made Italian, Michele Ferrero. If you thought that Del Vecchio and Luxottica would b e c o n t e n t w i t h t h e i r immense success, you'd be mistaken, because the 2010s saw the company develop and expand further: in 2014, Lux- ottica began collaborating with Intel, to develop wear- able optical technologies, set- ting a foot into a near future made of fashionable, wear- able high-tech products. In 2017, it joined forces with French high-quality lens producer Essilor, creating EssilorLuxottica. Today, Lux- ottica counts around 9,000 s t o r e s w o r l d w i d e a n d employs more than 80,000 people. In 2019, its revenue was around 11,000 billion d o l l a r s : n o t b a d f o r w h a t started as a small workshop with just over ten employees. Leonardo Del Vecchio died in June 2022, at the age of 87. I t may - or may not - come as a surprise to y o u , b u t t h e b l u e j e a n s , o n e o f t h e most iconic symbols of American 20th-century pop culture, are an Italian invention! In fact, if we real- ly want to be precise, it's an Italian American invention, because if it's true that the f a b r i c c o m e s f r o m I t a l y , jeans wouldn't be jeans with- out Levi Strauss. The southern French town of Nîmes used to produce a sturdy blue fabric which was exported in very large quan- t i t i e s t o G e n o a , t o m a k e sailors' pants. The fabric, which was sturdy but com- fortable, and was known as b l u e d e G ê n e s , o r G e n o a blue. Soon, these blue de Gênes pants crossed the borders of France and Italy and became popular among anglophone sailors too: hence the birth of "blue jeans" a distortion of the French "blue de Gênes. " The expression entered the everyday language in 1567 - as noted by the Oxford Dic- tionary of English. But how did our Blue de G ê n e s m a k e i t a c r o s s t h e Atlantic to become one of America's most iconic prod- ucts? As it was used to make sailors' clothing, pants in particular, the fabric likely entered the US via New York on Genoese ships. However, we may have to thank also one specific person when it comes to bringing the Liguri- an-French fabric to the new w o r l d , a y o u n g G e r m a n immigrant called Löb Strauß, who at the age of 24 decided to leave Europe and join his two brothers in New York, where they had started a gar- m e n t s - m a k i n g b u s i n e s s . Levi Strauss, the father of blue jeans as we know them, moved to San Francisco in 1850, where thousands of people had moved, attracted by the Gold Rush. Strauss focused on miners, to whom h e w o u l d s e l l w o r k i n g clothes. It was by listening to their requests for stronger garments that Strauss decid- ed to create pants with blue jeans fabric and reinforce them with the use of rivets, with a system ideated by tai- lor Jacob David. The two got their new creation, which they called "jeans," patented and, in 1873, their company, Levi Strauss & Co., was born. Italian inventions: the blue jeans The French-Italian blue de Gênes fabric is where jeans come from (Photo: Volodymyr Zakharov/Dreamstime) Luxottica owns and produces a great number of popular eyewear brands (Photo: Cineberg Ug/Dreamstime) Luxottica: a Made in Italy "American Dream" IMPRESA ITALIA MADE IN ITALY TOP BRANDS BUSINESS & ECONOMY

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