About

That basic input had brought to light a passion that had always been inherent in its essence, turning it into what it would become his job. Andrea’s creations are an expression of beauty and mind strength, with a caring eye to respecting the environment, for which he has always nourished a great love. Once back in Italy, after quitting his job as bartender, he started producing shoes, giving life to his very own brand, “Andrea Verdura”.

Gifted with a discrete dexterity and a creativity which is ingenious at times, his path has never been traditional: he never studied design or made special schools, but followed his natural predisposition and passion to assimilate an ancient craft only and studied the fundamental steps to the realization of any idea. Ideas that always take inspiration from nature and travels: the encounter with other cultures is essential to open the mind, discovering new ways of understanding elegance and style.

From Australia to the garage in his hometown Piombino, where the first shoes, made with recycled tires and leather, were born. He opened the first sudio close to the sea, still in Piombino, where he soon opened a space open to the public; the “team” in those days was made up of his mother, his girlfriend and a group of young musicians who fell in love with the project, driven by that unusual mission and by such original products. A few years later he decided to move to the countryside, in Fucecchio, in order to facilitate production. He set up his home-studio-workshop, started working on vegetable tanned leather and created the first collections, made of models now become iconic as its “Peter Pan”, produced either with leather treated with natural processes respecting the animal, and with natural fabrics such as canvas, latex and hemp. Great attention to the procedure too: the work has always been done in a traditional way, with a very long preparation and a production process that has about 150 steps, those that are skipped with industrialization and make shoes easily break after a while.

Andrea has never wanted to sacrifice quality, reason why he had to face many difficulties; in the beginning dealers could not understand why their models did not have a competitive price with large retailers. Struggling but without giving up for a moment, he insisted without compromising, an attitude that lead him landing on the foreign market too, more open to accepting the peculiarity of the brand and the long work behind it.

The meeting with the fishing net was like the one with rubber: a chance on a sunny day, on the desert beach of his Piombino. While he was enjoying the sun he saw a fishing net caught on a rock; he dived to get it and resting it on the sand, slipping his foot between those time consumed meshes soaked in salt, saw the shape of a sandal. This is where the first model made with fishing nets comes. It was only later on that he discovered this kind of fishing nets have been banned by the European Union because its tight mesh altered he marine biodiversity. Alongside the classic footwear, we have the new Verdura Shoes, an eco-friendly, sustainable and completely handmade collection, produced with 100% natural materials, magically coming out of the waves of that sea that Andrea has always in his eyes and heart when he designs a new pair of shoes. In addition to the belief that the shoe is not a simple accessory, but something more.