Anacapri The Dream

The House That Loafers Built

Diego Della Valle has built an empire thanks in large part to his driving shoe. The chairman and CEO of Tod’s has made the Gommino, as the loafer is called, as iconic as Hermes’ Birkin bag or Chanel’s tweed jacket. Under the Tod’s Group, Mr. Della Valle runs Tod’s, Hogan (famous for its sneakers), Roger Vivier and Fay (a ready to wear label). He also owns a significant interest, an almost 20 percent stake, in the American retail chain Saks Fifth Avenue.

The name Tod’s was lifted by Mr. Della Valle out of a Boston phone book. And in his early days, Mr. Della Valle was often compared to Ralph Lauren.

I have had the chance to visit the Tod’s factory in Italy with its impressive facilities for its workers such as a huge cafeteria and a day care for those with children. A couple of years ago, I also had the pleasure of sailing around Capri on his boat capped by a tour of his private villa in Anacapri.

In Hong Kong for the launch of its new Signature line, Tod’s version of a house monogram, I caught up with Mr. Della Valle about business, his idea of true luxury and la dolce vita.

Do you still enjoy being called the Italian Ralph Lauren?

Personally yes because he is a good man. He has a solid company with a good image with products made in China. He is an interesting, curious man. He understands taste very well. He built the image of American taste. The difference is that we make our products in Italy and we didn’t have to invent an Italian style.

But what is Italian style?

Italian style is a natural attitude. It is about a life of good taste. It doesn’t have to be expensive. Simple but with good taste. Luxury is possible to buy. Good taste is not.

The Italian style has been the focus of your advertising campaigns using real Italian families…

We want real people, real houses, and real stories. Everybody tries to follow the Italian style with actresses and such. We are the Italian style. We don’t need to invent it. We just need to photograph the moment.  The idea every season is too have a small story. The next one is in Venice. We don’t look at them as campaigns but as reportage.

There is so much focus on China right now as the new hub of luxury, how much of your business is in China?

It is 10 per cent, more or less. We want to grow in China but at the same time we don’t want to destroy our luxury reputation. In China, everyone wants to open stores. Maybe one day, the Chinese will question what is luxury and what is not. Now China is exciting because it is just starting that is why there is so much focus. But real luxury is worldwide.

Anacapri - The Dream

Someone needs to tell S&G Software that it’s no longer 1993. Creating games with photographs and video clips in place of digitally created images is about as culturally relevant today as a new Coolio CD, so it’s hard to see what the developer was thinking when it made Anacapri: The Dream. This throwback to the era of The 7th Guest may include thousands of photographs of one of the most gorgeous vacation spots on the planet, but it plays more like something you found at a yard sale than a game you pulled down from the new releases shelf.

The line between games and movies is sort of blurred in the structure of the game. While the play style holds tight to the point-and-click adventure template, the game is constructed solely with still photos that give your jaunt the vibe of an indie film. So even though you play a stereotypical sleuth looking to solve the mystery of the ancient Obsidian Disk on the island of Capri, the atmosphere is quite different from the sorts of adventures you might be accustomed to. Thousands of photos depicting everything from seaside vistas to cobblestone roads, to the many quaint shops lining the narrow streets of the titular town of Anacapri, give you the impression that you’ve embarked on a real trip to the exotic Mediterranean locale. The gameworld is absolutely massive, so it frequently feels as if you’re really exploring all of the crooks and crannies of the island.

However, there are prices to pay for this type of presentation and the sheer size of everything. Many of the most potentially picturesque outdoor shots are blurry or strewn with artifacts, presumably to keep picture size reasonable. Oddly, the most sharply detailed pics are the dull ones that show a shopkeeper behind his counter or an old man sitting on a bench. Regardless of quality, there is an air of absurdity to the whole affair because of the use of multiple shots of people during conversations to give the illusion of movement. Done more subtly, this might have been a good idea, and might have nicely added the illusion of movement to what is otherwise a breathless game. But all of the changed poses and expressions given to Anacapri residents are wildly exaggerated, so encounters with them come off like some sort of bizarre mime show. Finally, there are some technological issues in the install process due to the high number of photographs. There are so many photos included as single, high-resolution files that the installation takes almost as long as a flight to Capri itself. You might want to brew a pot of coffee for this one, as it takes a good two hours for all seven gigs of picture files to be transferred from the DVD to your hard drive.

PC gamer

Bracelets of Light

The autobiography of Margaret Oliphant

Axel Munthe, the road to San Michele

Good company