Piquadro

Piquadro is an Italian brand of business and leisure bags and suitcases with a high content of design and technology. The company was founded by Marco Palmieri in 1988 and is now the parent company of the Piquadro Group, which includes the heritage Florentine leather brand The Bridge S.p.A. and the Parisian Maison of luxury leather bags Lancel. Piquadro S.p.A. has been listed on the Milan Stock Exchange since 2007 and its headquarters are in Silla di Gaggio Montano in the Province of Bologna. The consolidated turnover of the Group as of March 31, 2020 is 152.2 million euros, and its distribution network extends to over 50 countries worldwide and has 177 points of sale that include 85 Piquadro boutiques, 12 The Bridge and 80 Lancel boutiques.
Corporate history.
Marco Palmieri, born in 1965, began his career as a computer scientist at the age of twenty when, still an engineering student, he founded Mediacom, a company active in the control systems of industrial processes through the recognition of shapes. His passion for mathematics and technology will always accompany him, even when in 1988 he will sell Mediacom to bring to life a completely different project. In fact, he decides to devote himself to leather goods to create a new idea that will prove successful in a few years. In 1988 he begins to produce belts with a machine and a worker to subsequently expand the offer on wallets and bags. In 1996 he implements a software system that for the first time uses a water scalpel to cut leather and in 1998 he is finally ready realize his dream by creating the Piquadro brand whose name indicates the two P's of Palmieri and pelletterie (leather goods in Italian). The winning idea behind the Piquadro product is the creation of designer’s computer bags. In fact, these were the years when laptops began to spread but the offer of bags to carry them was very limited. They were exclusively made of technical fabric while leather bags for managers, professionals and entrepreneurs were not yet designed for the computer. The modern design of the Piquadro products and a very innovative advertising campaign made immediately Piquadro a success on the Italian market.
In 2000 the first single-brand store was opened on via della Spiga in Milan, followed, two years later, by the one on via Frattina in Rome. In 2004, an internationalization process began with the inauguration of the boutique on Paseo de Gracia in Barcelona and subsequently with the opening of several stores in Moscow making in a few years Russia the second market for Piquadro.
In 2006 the new company headquarters was inaugurated, a futuristic glass and metal building on the hills of the Bolognese Apennines near Gaggio Montano, halfway between Florence and Bologna. The plant, whose project by the Italian-Lebanese architect Karim Azzabi was exhibited in 2012 at the Venice Architecture Biennale, houses the offices and a fully automated warehouse capable of serving the whole world in 24-48 hours.
In September 2012 Piquadro inaugurated its offices in Milan, a space of about 500 square meters which in 2016 became 1000 to host, in addition to the Piquadro showroom, also the Lancel and The Bridge showrooms. In fact, in December 2016 Piquadro acquired the heritage Florentine leather brand The Bridge and, in 2018, the prestigious Parisian maison of leather bags Lancel, then owned by Richemont International, the third largest international luxury group.
In June 2018 Marco Palmieri was appointed Cavaliere del Lavoro.
Product's philosophy.
The three values inspiring the brand - design, functionality and technological innovation - merge in the Piquadro products with the taste of Italian craftsmanship, the quality of fine leathers and attention to detail. In each collection Piquadro offers a wide range of bags, suitcases and small accessories in which the originality and elegance of the Italian style are combined with a studied practicality and reliability at the service of work, travel and the intense pace of contemporary life. The soul of the brand - Tech Inside - lies behind the design of each product. Quality and technology, perfectly combined in the Piquadro products, allow the creation of accessories capable of combining aesthetics with performance meant as comfort in use, space optimization and content protection. During 2016 Piquadro initiated the Bagmotic project, a sort of bag automation that represents an evolution of the 'Tech inside' concept, thus embracing the modern philosophy of the IoT (Internet of Things). Products equipped with BAGMOTIC technology are able to communicate with us because they are connected via Bluetooth with our smartphone and / or our smartwatch thanks to the Connequ app available on the App Store and Play Store. They are equipped with a Bluetooth lock, an integrated battery that recharges the smartphone by simple contact, an alert device in case of theft or loss, a handle that weighs the trolley and tells us which airlines allow it in the cabin.
The leathers used for the realization of Piquadro products are exclusively Italian and come mainly from the Tuscan tanning district, whose ancient tradition makes it the best known and most prestigious in the world. Combined with state-of-the-art technological fabrics, they make bags, backpacks and suitcases with a recognizable and essential aesthetic in classic colors and original hues.
The product range include permanent and seasonal lines. Thanks to their linear and recognizable design, some permanent lines, like Modus and Blue Square, have become true icons, proposed and renewed every season with the addition of new models and colors.