Nearly eighty years ago, Pasquale Valli secured a position at an umbrella factory in Veduggio, Italy, managing the department that oversaw the design and production of handles. While umbrellas of the time looked exactly the same—somber, dark and gloomy—the treatment reserved for the handle itself was wildly different. In Valli's design department, fancy took flight. The handle articulated the true personality of the umbrella and it was this piece that captured a buyer’s attention. The importance of touch and the contact between a consumer and an innovatively designed object was an experience that Pasquale Valli valued immeasurably.