Guidi

Guidi was founded in 1896 in Pescia, Tuscany by Vincenzo Guidi and Italo Rosellini as a small leather tannery specialising in vegetable-tanned full-grain leather using oak-bark and chestnut-bark dyes — a method that had been the local tanning tradition for centuries. The brand operated for over 80 years primarily as a wholesale leather supplier to Italian shoemakers, leather-goods manufacturers, and the broader Tuscan leather-craft industry, before launching the Guidi-branded direct-to-consumer footwear and accessories line in the early 2000s. The Guidi vocabulary settled around several specific products: the iconic 308 horse-leather back-zip boot (the brand's defining product, a slouchy elongated leg silhouette in horse leather that has become one of the defining 'avant-garde' luxury boots of the 2010s), the 988 Derby, the 996 cap-toe ankle boot, and various sculptural leather bags. Production remains entirely in Pescia, Tuscany, with vegetable tanning at the original Guidi tannery and hand-construction at the workshop. The brand has long-running relationships with avant-garde designers — Carol Christian Poell, Boris Bidjan Saberi, Rick Owens — who use Guidi leathers for their own work. The brand is independent and family-controlled by the Guidi and Rosellini families through five generations. Guidi operates flagship retail in Paris (Rue Charlot in the Marais) plus international wholesale through SSENSE, GR8, Antonioli, LN-CC, Lane Crawford, the major avant-garde-luxury specialty retailers globally, and a small set of carefully chosen Asian and European boutiques. Few Italian leather houses have remained so committed to a single, deeply specific craft tradition over more than 125 years.