Driving Force: Diego Della Valle

(3 of 3)

"This is really the heart of the company, these people," says Andrea. "Without them, without their expertise and the soul they put into this craftsmanship, we would not have a product." Indeed, most Tod's shoes require 120 different stages of assemblage, and each pair is made by hand and cut from a single hide so that the shoe's grain is consistent. The shoemaking process begins inside the patternmaking room—which Andrea refers to as the intelligence center—where a dozen engineers hunch over computer screens, carefully devising the patterns for each shoe—some entail as many as 70 different pieces. Down the hall, the modelist carves up each style's last by hand, a technique few manufacturers actually have in-house. Finally, the leather pieces will be chosen by the company expert, Antonio Ripani, who presides over more than 20 million sq. ft. of hides—calfskin, anaconda, gazelle, ostrich, crocodile—in a giant storeroom alongside the factory. After the patterns are cut by hand with an X-Acto knife, the shoes will be stitched and molded and blown dry on a special rack.

In addition to overseeing production in the factory, Andrea is president of the Fiorentina team (he designed the uniforms). He often finds himself applying his soccer management style to the workers in the company—which is to say, never be too confident when things are going well or too demoralized when they're not. That cautiousness at home, combined with Diego's easygoing joviality abroad, has made the brand as popular with Hollywood A listers as it is with Greenwich, Conn., housewives.

Plans are in place to launch a line of Tod's sunglasses, open 25 Tod's stores in China over the next two years, launch Fay in Asia and the U.S. (the brand is currently sold only in Europe), open more Vivier and Hogan stores and sign up Lam to design his own line of handbags.

Friends wonder if Diego will one day go into politics. He sits on the board of a number of companies—including Ferrari, Maserati, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro and LVMH (which owns a 3.5% stake in Tod's)—but insists that shoemaking is his only work interest. "My job is to touch leather and create brands," he says. "And then more time for my family."

For now he is looking forward to his summer vacation in his new Capri house, which Barbara designed. There he will take walks, eat a simple plate of pasta and go for a ride on the Candida, his 40-m J-class yacht. "People think I'm provincial because I don't go to Capri to go out. I want to enjoy my family," he says. It's enjoyment, as in "Dignity, duty and enjoyment."