The intuition of Narciso

Narciso Delladio is the fifth of eight children. He is from Val di Fiemme, a willing and resourceful youngster. He emigrated, and worked a few years in Venice as a bricklayer and put aside enough money to return to the valley and open up a shoemaker's shop in Tesero, , just like his father and some of his brothers. Born in 1890, he married Luigia, twelve years younger than him, when he was thirty-one years old. He had very few things in his shop: a stool, a bench and a few tools. He started making wooden clogs for the woodsmen and special boots with nails which were very popular at the time. His customers were farmers, lumberjacks and farm workers from the valley and then one or two excursionists or tourist passing through who appreciated the Dolomites and those strong leather work shoes which he made and which were also suitable for excursions and alpine ascents. Alpinism was fashionable. Narciso had the intuition to realise the vocation of his workshop and the possibility of differentiating himself from the competition by making mountain boots instead of work boots.

He develops some other models making lighter shoes, with the aim of selling his products to holiday makers and alpinists from afar, usually willing to pay more and better than the locals. Narciso had original ideas, he developed the idea of a shoe with posterior lacing which he fine-tuned by listening to the advice of the more expert woodcutters. He is an innovator and has progressive ideas, he loves modernity. He has a passion for engines and is fascinated by technology, he studies Esperanto enthusiastically which he considers the universal language of the future. In 1926 he dares to buy one of the first cars, a Fiat 509 with which he offers a transport service to tourists who are increasing in number and come and go from the Dolomites. The car though, above all, is useful to Narciso because it helps him understand the potential linked to the tourists and excursionists who are visiting the Dolomites and therefore indirectly the vocation and the potential tied to his activity as a shoe maker. In 1928 he does not miss the chance to visit the trade fair in Milan, a name is needed for his shoe shop, which he defines as Sportiva to differentiate it from the other shoe shops, who instead continue to work mainly with lumberjacks and farmers. This is a turning point, taking part in the Milan Trade Fair (Fiera di Milano) proves to be a success but above all proves to be the opportunity to make the company known beyond the borders of Trentino. And it is this date and episode which ‘officially’ triggers off his real activity. In the meanwhile Narciso’s family has grown, three daughters have arrived, Anna, Narcisa, and Clara and only one son, Francesco, who preferring work to school will quickly support his father, side by side in the shoe making lab.