Over coffee and croissants at a breakfast press conference at the Ritz today, Tod’s president and CEO Diego Della Valle announced the company’s new collaboration project, Tod’s Factory. The initiative takes its name from Andy Warhol’s famous Factory; it won’t only be designers that Tod’s enlists as partners, young photographers and filmmakers could be invited to participate, too. “We want to make stories,” Della Valle said. Explaining the impact of the mobile phone on brand communications, he continued, “We are more like editors in chief now. Editors need 12 covers a year, we need every two months a new project.”
For the first Tod’s Factory release, Della Valle has hired Alessandro Dell’Acqua, an industry veteran and the designer of the No. 21 and Rochas labels. “I’ve taken into account the heritage, but I was free in my choices,” Dell’Acqua said, sharing the example of the label’s signature pebble soles, which he shrunk down and used on low-heeled, loafer-style pumps and ankle boots. Of working with Tod’s craftspeople, he cheered, “It opened my heart and gave me new enthusiasm.”
“See, one can be a fashion designer and be a nice person,” Della Valle said in reply. The Tod’s honcho is not unlike Moncler’s Remo Ruffini in his thinking. The Moncler Genius project, which launched earlier this year, adheres to a similar “drop” formula. Unlike Moncler, which announced a season’s worth of collaborators at once, Tod’s is holding the name of collaborator number two to build excitement.
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