Leather, Goodyear seam, little way hooks, Blake method. With the new Wladi Rigato shoe models it is difficult to remain barefoot.
In the recent decades the technology has revolutionized the economic production of each sector and Wladi Rigato is well aware of this. While working as a researcher and as a mechanical engineer in Padua, he decided, at a turning point in his life, to take on a new role and start managing his family shoe factory.
The challenge was to combine tradition and craftsmanship: the basic foundations inherited from his father with the impact of the increasingly sophisticated and performing machinery; like 3D scanners, parametric design or simple Cad Cam, and the lifestyle of the contemporary clientele: demanding, informed and constantly moving around.
It is so created, the new Wladi Rigato collection from the shape to the imagination of everything is possible, but above all entirely ‘tailor made’.
In the wide range of shoes on offer, the winning niche is personalization that in the Rigato family is also synonymous of attentions, care and love for the well-being of the people
The shoe factory was born as a laboratory for the production of orthopaedic shoes, a precious support for people with feet disorders. With the revolutionary hi-tech wave of Wladi Rigato, the shoe, which always preserves the experience and anatomical study of the individually adapted foot, both right and left, is enhanced by a touch of evergreen elegance in iconic models such as oxford or francesina, the brogue, the monk strap, just for the almost fetishist aesthetic pleasure of having a nice pair of shoes.
Choosing a pair of Rigato shoes has both ethical and ecological added value. The company does not produce a surplus, has no stock to be sold on sale and the material used is strictly Made in Italy, as purchased directly from the tannery districts in Vicenza and Tuscany.
It is undeniable that fashion and luxury go hand in hand, and getting in makes you feel a bit like a protagonist. But today compared to a few years ago, the “accessible luxury”, thanks perhaps to the window offered by the Internet in the marketplace, is faster and more available. Furthermore, the culture of luxury itself has grown, no longer as just an asset for elitists, but rather as recognition of the economical value and the highest quality.
It is therefore necessary to dispel the prejudice that the ‘tailor made‘ is a prerogative of the high range with inaccessible prices. The aspect, in fact, that needs to be evaluated is that a handmade shoe is a long-term investment. The perishability of a top of the range product is very slow and it allows to undergo alterations or distortions.
“Today it is difficult to choose a product that knows how to understand people’s individual desires,” says Wladi Rigato. “Fashion is conditioned by trends and by the ‘everything now’. Instead, I like to think of the shoe as an element that is born and grows together with the person who has desired it as a projection of their well-being between history, taste and dream. ”
All the photos have been kindly granted by Wladi Rigato.
Wladi Rigato
Via dell’Artigianato 13/15
Vigonovo, (Venezia)
