Tod’s Supports Young Creative Talent With Re-Generation Project
MILAN — Tod’s continues to support the creativity of young talent with its Re-Generation project.
With a focus on sustainability, Tod’s Academy has selected 20 young students of Istituto Marangoni in Milan and Florence to interpret the codes of the brand on a range of different new products.
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This is the second such project for the Tod’s Academy, after the Legacy chapter in collaboration with London’s Central Saint Martins University of Arts last year.
Students hail not only from Italy but also other countries, from Taiwan and India to China, Azerbaijan, Iran and Brazil.
ONSTAGESTUDIO- image courtesy of Tod's
Carlo Alberto Beretta, Tod’s general brand manager, said the goal with the Re-Generation project was to “stimulate young creatives from around the world that come to Italy to study and to create products with a strong attention to sustainability, a topic that is increasingly more central for all of the initiatives that Tod’s has been carrying forward for some time. These students, working with our artisans, express the best of themselves with the help of the techniques and the expertise of the artisans.”
Beretta also sees this project as a way to help the students enter the workplace. “They are an inexhaustible source of ideas and innovation,” he added.
The students, who sought to find environmentally friendly materials, were mentored throughout the project, with the opportunity to approach the world of design and production through an experience at the company’s headquarters and seeing the artisans at work. Mentors ranged from Laura Brown, editor in chief of InStyle USA, to Gianluca Longo, style editor of British Vogue and style director of The World of Interiors, and Simone Marchetti, editor in chief of Vanity Fair Italia and European editorial director of Vanity Fair, among others.
Stefania Valenti, managing director of Istituto Marangoni, said the project “brought to the students such a level of awareness and a really immersive knowledge of product development. In particular, the experience at the Tod’s Group headquarters in the Marche has given them a unique opportunity to deal with the artisans there, who are custodians of the brand’s heritage and from which any possible evolution begins. Thanks to this exchange, our students have been able to finalize their creative propositions, being offered a vision for a concrete project and, potentially, production.”
Tod’s Academy, based at the brand’s headquarters in the Marche region, was conceived with the goal to protect and extend Italian craftsmanship from generation to generation, blended with the creativity of young designers.
The products will be unveiled Friday on Tod’s digital channels and an experience at Tod’s headquarters will be offered to some of the most talented students.
ONSTAGESTUDIO -image courtesy of Tod's
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