Santoni’s artisans have spent more than 50 years perfecting a method of colouring leather that produces results no two people – and no machine – could ever replicate. The Maison’s President and Chairman, Giuseppe Santoni, has spent his career ensuring that distinction holds true.

Before a Santoni shoe is a shoe, it is a surface waiting for colour. A manual colouring technique, drawn from the traditions of Renaissance painters and the Venetian landscape artists who preceded them, is applied in successive layers, one upon another, each left to be absorbed before the next is laid down. This can take up to 15 steps until the desired hue emerges from the leather like light through glazed canvas.

The technique is called ‘velatura’, and it has not changed since the Maison’s artisans first refined it in Corridonia, Italy, drawing on the same layering method that gave Venetian art its depth and lustre.

Giuseppe Santoni, President and Chairman of the Maison, is precise about what makes velatura irreplaceable and why it must stay that way. “At Santoni, we industrialise only what is repetitive,” he says, “while carefully protecting the phases where the hand creates real value. By freeing our artisans from mechanical repetition, we allow their experience and intuition to be fully dedicated to the most delicate moments, such as velatura, where colour is built layer by layer and no two results can ever be the same.”

The recipes, zealously guarded, pass from master to pupil. And this philosophy of colour extends across every creation the Maison produces, not only its bespoke or made-to-order work, but every shoe that leaves Corridonia, the hilltop town in the Marche region where Santoni has been rooted since Andrea
Santoni founded the company more than 50 years ago.

Giuseppe, who began travelling the world as a young man to open markets in Japan, China, Northern Europe, and Russia, has always understood that the Maison’s identity is inseparable from its address.
“We like to speak of Made in Santoni rather than simply Made in Italy,” he explains. “It is our way of expressing a distinctive culture of making, a precise vision, and an identity shaped over time.”

That identity finds its fullest expression in One of One, Santoni’s personalisation ecosystem. Spanning four distinct experiences, from the full bespoke journey of One of a Kind to the instant in-store ritual of One Live, it frames colour and craftsmanship as a dialogue rather than a transaction. In One Yours, Santoni’s Made to Order service, clients choose from over 130 material and colour combinations across signature leathers, including Origine, a natural full-grain calfskin; Seta, a silky suede; and Ultratouch, an
extra-fine calfskin of exceptional softness.

A digital configurator, arriving by the end of 2026, will extend this experience online. “The true essence of One Yours lies in the time devoted to the client,” Giuseppe says. “The goal is not to replicate the boutique experience, but to amplify and elevate it.”

Longevity, too, is part of Santoni’s idea of colour. One Forever, the Maison’s after-care programme, includes colour renewal alongside resoling and polishing, treating each shoe as an object worth preserving across decades. “It is not uncommon for our clients to re-sole their shoes even after ten years of wear,” Giuseppe notes. “When something is made to last, it acquires character, memory, and meaning.”
Thus, colour at Santoni is a record of time, patience, and an unmistakably human hand.

PHOTOS: COURTESY OF SANTONI