In the early 1980s Diego and his brother Andrea Della Valle were living in New York when they took a fated trip to Maine. There, they saw the work jackets worn by the local fire department and it ignited a spark, pun intended.

The distinctive industrial metal fastenings caught the eye of the owners of Italy’s Tod’s Group. Enlisting their quintessentially Italian ingenuity, the fashion magnates took over the Fay brand which was, at the time, a producer of technical garments for fishermen and firefighters, and set their sights on adapting the firmly utilitarian design for a luxury clientele.