by Kent Jennings Brockwell
Staff Writer
After this week, searching for a high-end, high-quality Italian leather bag will no longer require a trip to New York or Milan.
Vaccaro, a high-end Italian leather goods store, will open on Laura Street Friday.
But don’t expect to find Gucci or Kate Spade at Vaccaro. Expect to find Vaccaro.
Besides being a retail store, Vaccaro is the brand name for a new line of Italian leather merchandise being sold downtown.
The Laura Street store is the debut for the new line.
Co-owners Greg Vaccaro and Kimberly Fusto said they are planning great things for the new company. Vaccaro is also the owner of Gus & Co. next door.
Vaccaro said what sets his merchandise apart from other brands is the higher quality of his goods.
“I hand pick everything,” he said. “I know what good leather is.”
And he should. As a third generation shoemaker, Vaccaro said he knows all of the ins and outs of leather working, shoe making and luggage repair. That is why he says his bags are of such high-quality.
“When you have been in the business so long, you tend to know what the problem areas are,” he said. “What areas do we always fix? Handles, hardware, lining and stitching.”
For his products, Vaccaro said he has chosen the best quality materials and manufacturing lines.
Vaccaro selects all of his leather from an area around Florence, Italy. He chooses his leather from this area because cows there are raised differently.
“All of the cows in Florence live on the side of a hill, eating nice grass with no hormones, breathing fresh air,” he said. “That makes everything better. The meat is succulent. Their skin texture is much better. The skins are soft because of the environment that they are raised in.”
He also hand picks his leather so he can eyeball the material before the production stage.
“Say a cow rubs up against a fence and he has got a scratch on him,” he said. “You don’t want to put that scratch on a bag. I hand pick the leather so I won’t have blemishes anywhere on the product.”
Vaccaro is equally meticulous when it comes to his production work. All Vaccaro brand merchandise is manufactured by a small family-owned-and-operated company in Florence. Hardware and machined pieces for his bags come from another small family owned and operated company in Germany.
“It takes so much time to have these things made correctly,” he said. “This is not a mass-produced product. It takes time to put this all together. There are about 1,000 steps to putting one briefcase together. And that is just one design.”
And Vaccaro has lots of different designs. From gloves to handbags to an all-leather golf bag, Fusto said the product line is already set to expand, depending on how the company does from the beginning. Initially, she has set plans to expand the product line every six months.
While Vaccaro handles most of the design and technical aspects of the company and the product line, Fusto runs the business side of the operation.
Fusto said Jacksonville is just a starting point for the company and the merchandise. Though she has already signed agreements with manufacturing representatives in Chicago and New York, Fusto said her eyes are pointed west. She said the company is currently looking for West Coast representation.
“California is definitely a place we want to be,” she said. “We just have to find the right place. I don’t think Rodeo Drive is the place for us to be. Until we establish ourself with the name it will be pretty hard to go there.”
Besides California, Fusto said future ambitions are to have Vaccaro merchandise in Vancouver and Florence.
“Our long term goal is a lot bigger that just Jacksonville,” she said. “We don’t want to just be a single retail shop.”
And even though her top goal is for the Vaccaro line to become an internationally recognized brand, for now she said Jacksonville is the right place for the company to start.
And just in case the Vaccaro line becomes a household name overnight, Fusto said the production side of the company is prepared for a boom.
“Our manufacturers are prepared,” she said. “There won’t be any problem with the delivery of a large order. We should be able to fill anybody’s order.”
For the immediate future, Fusto said the company will expand to include handmade, handcrafted Italian furniture and Vaccaro brand shoes. She said Vaccaro will also start to carry certain big name luggage brands.
“We only want to use and stock companies that have really good warranties and really good reputations,” she said. “It will all be Italian focused.”
One company they are looking at is Samsonite, but not the U.S. branch. Fusto said they will be carrying Italian designed Samsonite that comes from Milan, Italy.
What ever the future may hold for the company, Vaccaro said that putting this store together has been a aspiration for himself and Fusto.
“(Vaccaro’s) is like a dream.” he said. “We are just doing something that I have had in my head for a long time. I am not trying to create a new multi-national business. I am just doing my very best at making quality merchandise.”