MILAN — “One of the lessons I’ve learned is the importance of patience,” said Sandro Veronesi, reflecting on his 40-year-long journey at the helm of Italian multibrand group Oniverse.
Established in Verona, Italy, in 1986 as the corporate extension of the innerwear, hosiery and beachwear brand Calzedonia, the group has grown into a diversified powerhouse, challenging the long-held notion that Italian fashion companies struggle to achieve scale.
In addition to Calzedonia, it also currently comprises innerwear brands Intimissimi; Luman, previously known as Intimissimi Uomo, and Tezenis; knitwear and cashmere label Falconeri; wine retailer Signorvino; bridal brand Atelier Emé; luxury fashion brand Antonio Marras, and premium yacht-maker Cantiere del Pardo, which it acquired in 2023, including the Grand Soleil, Pardo and Van Dutch labels.
Marking its 40th anniversary, the brand hosted a party for about 10,000 of its employees last month at the Roman amphitheater Arena di Verona. Last week Veronesi flew to New York to host “Galleria Falconeri” at the Brant Foundation in the East Village, combining celebrations for the cashmere brand and the group’s milestone.
“The company grew in small steps, but those baby steps brought us here,” Veronesi told WWD, reflecting about the anniversary.
That means revenues rose to 3.7 billion euros in 2025, a 4.8 percent increase at current exchange rates versus a year earlier, with exports amounting to 2.3 billion euros compared with 2.2 billion euros in 2024.
“There are many ingredients behind our growth. The first is maintaining a close relationship with our customers and understanding what they want. Today we are present in nearly 60 countries, each with different needs, tastes and their own brands and competitors. It takes years to understand a market and earn recognition,” Veronesi said.
As of Dec. 31, 2025, the group had a total of 5,538 stores, of which 3,650 were outside Italy.
“We maintain close relationships with customers through different strategies, both in our stores and through e-commerce. Innerwear remains our core business, and because it is a recurring purchase, consumers tend to be loyal,” he said.
That customer-centric approach is one Veronesi has brought to the brands Oniverse has acquired over the years, from Falconeri in 2009 to Atelier Emé in 2015 and Antonio Marras in 2022, among others.
“There was not necessarily a precise strategic logic behind the diversification. I could have chosen to deepen our specialization, but I am curious, and opportunities emerged. I began asking myself whether we had the ability to explore new sectors.
“Diversification allows you to encounter different experiences that can be useful in sectors you already know. There are also connections in communication and distribution. It helps mitigate risk and allows us to bring experience from newer sectors, such as wine and boating, back into businesses we know better,” he said.
To be sure, in 2023 the company, previously known as Calzedonia Group, changed its name to Oniverse to reflect the transformation from an innerwear specialist to an international and diversified group spanning luxury fashion, bridal, wine and yacht-making.
The name, a play on universe and an anagram of the Veronesi surname, was selected through an in-house contest that engaged the company’s employees, signaling their involvement in the evolution of the company.
Last year Oniverse invested about 350 million euros in its brands. Veronesi forecast a similar expenditure in the years to come, geared at retail expansion and internationalization.
The U.S. is clearly high on the executive’s agenda — a market that is both under-explored by his brands and potentially highly lucrative.
The country currently accounts for about 3.9 percent of the overall Oniverse fashion business, or between 140 million and 150 million euros, driven by its retail presence.
For example, Intimissimi currently counts 63 stores in the U.S., a number poised to increase, while Calzedonia, with 30 flagships, could grasp the opportunity in the relatively fragmented swimwear segment, Veronesi contended. Falconeri has seven stores and it’s very much aligned with the American aesthetic sensibility, he opined. As part of the Antonio Marras brand’s international expansion, the designer’s first flagship outside Italy opened in New York’s SoHo in 2025.
“The United States is a major priority, but Europe also offers considerable potential. We are strong in many countries, but there is still substantial room for growth in Germany and France. In innerwear, our competitors are not delivering particularly strong results or offering the same level of competitiveness,” he said.
“We are one of the very few innerwear companies with a vertically integrated structure and our own factories. We have 25 production facilities around the world, in countries including Italy, Sri Lanka, Croatia, Bulgaria, Egypt and Tunisia, employing around 30,000 people.
“We built and have managed this supply chain for many years. It requires a significant investment in human resources and capital, but it is a major strength compared with our competitors. It gives us speed, flexibility and a different level of quality control,” the chairman explained.
There is a lot on Veronesi’s and the company’s plate.
“Our objective is to strengthen the brands we already have,” he said, waving off the possibility of new mergers and acquisitions.
The most recent, in 2023, was yachting company Cantiere del Pardo, founded in 1973 and specializing in sailing boats.
“There are no specific criteria [when selecting a target] beyond identifying growth potential — whether it’s a very small business or one that needs to be restructured,” he said.
It follows the acquisition, in 2022, of an 80 percent stake in Marras’ namesake company, providing the group’s retail and production experience, in addition to its financial muscle, to develop the brand, which has since opened key stores in luxury streets in Rome, Florence, as well as New York.
Acknowledging Marras could be viewed as something of a wild card in Oniverse’s portfolio, he characterized the acquisition as an exciting challenge.
“It will never become a very large company, but it can become an interesting niche player in fashion….Fashion is not always shining for its creativity these days. At Marras [we have that but] the business also needs to become more functional and improve its performance and sustainability,” Veronesi said.
His most pressing goal is to ensure an iron-clad generational handover at Oniverse. “One of the factors that has helped us grow has been giving space to young people,” the chairman said.
His sons are all involved in the family business, as members of the board and in various executive roles. Matteo serves as chief executive officer of Intimissimi and U.S. international markets director; Marcello is CEO of Cantiere del Pardo, and Federico is CEO of Signorvino and Oniwives, the company’s wine division. Veroniesi’s stepdaughter Silvia Falconi is creative director and CEO of Atelier Emé.
Veronesi ruled out a stock market listing in the near-term but remained open to future opportunities, a trait that has guided the executive throughout his career.
The group consistently ranked high among the companies with the highest potential to go public, according to several editions of the now-defunct yearly study “Le Quotabili,” which Milan-based consultancy Pambianco Strategie di Impresa conducted until 2024.