Yahoo Lifestyle How Maine Firefighters Sparked the Beginnings of an Italian Heritage Brand
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.
Over three decades later, that instinct has paid off in spades, says Michele Lupi, who joins me via Zoom to talk about the brand’s history, their recent archival projects, and the longstanding tradition of adapting the clothing of the everyman for the (high-end) masses. Today, the Fay brand includes full men’s and women’s ready-to-wear lines complete with everything from refined basics like shirting and knits to full suits—and of course, a stellar collection of outerwear for all seasons. And while you can now get everything from a classic car or trench coat to bomber jackets from Fay, those signature metal closures aka “ganci” still adorn a very special selection of their garments, some of which were recently highlighted in The Fay Archive.
More from Robb Report
The Archive is the brainchild of Lupi and Diego della Valle. Michele, whose background is in the magazine world with publications like GQ Italia, was handpicked by della Valle, who recognized Lupi’s astute understanding of both consumer needs and the artistry that high fashion necessitates as an asset to the brand. “I immediately started looking at the history of the brands,” Michele tells me, shortly after della Valle recruited him in 2018. Immediately taken by the rich legacy, and the storybook-like origins of finding inspiration in a rural coastal haven of Maine. “We decided together to do a small project called the Fay Archive to underline the original DNA of the brand,” he says.
It’s a project about authenticity, he says – a word at the heart of the Fay brand, and a practice that started when the brand ordered its first run of the jackets direct from the same New England manufacturer who was making them for the Maine firefighters.
Browse the Archive and you’ll find beautiful photos and stories about the kind of salt-of-the-earth workers who inspired the original jackets : fishermen in Japan, sherpas in Nepal, blacksmiths in Chile. The premise is simple, effective, and true to Fay’s roots: the iconic jackets were sent out to the very sorts of people who wore the jackets that inspired them, to field test and to prove that the brand retained not only the iconic aesthetic of its roots, but the durability and functionality that marks true luxury.
It’s a juxtaposition that is well represented in the retail space; to call it high-low would be reductive. It’s more dual purpose—pieces, or brands more specifically that signal both utility and status; functionality and adherence to trend. Consider the Barbour jacket, worn by farmers and the royal family alike, or a more contemporary example: the Carhartt jacket, once relegated strictly to a blue collar aesthetic isnow sought after in second hand stores with trendy young men coveting well worn jackets that have already achieved that broken-in status.
What sets Fay apart, too, is the harmonious amalgamation of characteristically Italian design with the sensibility of New England—and its earnest commitment not to appropriating or copying a certain aesthetic, but to embracing it authentically and blending it perfectly with Fay’s own design values. And for what it’s worth, that’s an assessment I’m uniquely qualified to make – I’m a born and bred New Englander but my mother’s family is Italian. The New England aesthetic is an oft imitated one, reproduced to varying degrees of success for everything from ready to wear to streetwear. Having grown up here though, these trends are a way of life that, much like the Fay Archive, don’t belong to any one group. At my high school, my desk-mate was just as likely to be a fisherman’s daughter as an Attenborough—and chances are they were both wearing the same all-weather boots. Similarly, my Italian upbringing has informed a shopping ethos that’s driven by quality and pride in investing whenever possible, not to signal status but to ensure the longevity of a good. Italy is known for its fashion, its slack suits that move like liquid on the body and its pristine leather goods and loafers so soft they feel like slippers. Combine that with the hearty, no-nonsense approach that colors most of the Northeast, and you have a jacket that will never go out of style, and never wear out its welcome—no matter the climate or trials you put it through.
And while the price tag on a Fay jacket is squarely aimed at a luxury consumer, that same ethos—the through-line between the Maine firefighter and the Italian gent—is clear: buy once, wear well. Critically considered, it’s a marker of class (not wealth) in and of itself. The Fay jacket, like its other high-end workwear counterparts operates not on the premise that true luxury is defined by trend or how rapidly you can consume, but by the purpose your garments serve.
Best of Robb Report
Sign up for RobbReports's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
