Mark Hooper

Founded over 50 years ago, Italian shoemaker Santoni has earned a reputation for quality, craftsmanship, and its commitment to “beauty through the hands.” Today, Giuseppe Santoni oversees the company founded by his father, Andrea, and remains committed to the philosophy behind the “Made in Santoni” mark found on every shoe it produces. “It is not simply a place of origin; it means ‘made by our hands,’” says Giuseppe. “Every step – from design to craftsmanship to final result – expresses a single, unmistakable standard of excellence,” he continues. “Our hands think, imagine, and create. They translate intuition into form, and knowledge into detail. Beauty is always found in the detail, where emotion, precision, and care reveal themselves most clearly.

In a small town south-west of Nottingham in England’s East Midlands, lies one of the world’s true textile pioneers. Founded in 1860, Sunspel has been quietly revolutionizing the industry by developing ever-better quality fabrics. As a specialist in luxury underwear for men, having introduced the boxer short to Britain in 1947, it was ideally placed when the T-shirt evolved from under- to outerwear (thanks to its adoption by American G.I.s and Hollywood antiheroes such as Marlon Brando and James Dean). Sunspel’s trademark crew-neck style T-shirt, in its smoother finish, has since become the staple by which all others are measured.