After working for years in luxury fashion, I reached a point in my career where I felt unfulfilled with the direction of where my professional life was heading.

I had been managing a beautiful heritage luxury men’s footwear brand, A. Testoni, when the time came that they would sell the company to a large conglomerate, somewhat breaking my heart to share the 100-year-old shoemaking craftsmanship built by a Northern Italian family that had become very special to me to a big company.