Calzedonia Brand Guidelines: The Verona Sock and Tights Chain That Became Oniverse

A hosiery manager and a shop of his own.

Calzedonia is an Italian chain of legwear and beachwear shops, and the brand from which the whole of the Oniverse group grew. Its founder is Sandro Veronesi. Il Post reported in October 2015 that he took a degree in economics and commerce and started work in 1984 at Golden Lady, the hosiery company. Forbes Italia wrote in December 2023 that he founded Calzedonia at 27 while still at Golden Lady as general manager.

The founding date depends on the source. The group’s website says the company was founded in Verona in 1986, and it gives 1986 for the Calzedonia brand. Forbes Italia used both years in one article: 1986 for the group and 1987 for Calzedonia. Il Post and Italian Wikipedia say 1987, at Vallese di Oppeano in the province of Verona; English Wikipedia reconciles the two, saying it was established in 1986 and officially launched in 1987.

The idea was simple. According to Il Post, Veronesi set out to sell quality products at an accessible price, and to begin with the company made only hosiery. Both Wikipedia articles say it grew through franchising, which let it spread quickly in Italy and beyond. The group’s own description of the brand today is “market specialists,” and it says accessories take centre stage in a consistently original style.

The name begins with calze, the Italian word for socks and stockings, and the group later carried the same name. By the time TextilWirtschaft wrote about the company on 23 November 2005, the German trade paper called it Italy’s largest lingerie and hosiery chain and reported that three quarters of its sales were still made at home, with the United States and Russia the markets it wanted to develop next.

Tights in a film, and a chain of brands.

Calzedonia’s advertising has leaned on famous faces, among them Julia Roberts. The company says it launched the brand internationally in 2014 with a cinematic commercial starring the actor, and that from 2015 it continued with a series of lighthearted spots set inside its shops. In beachwear, the company names Gisele Bündchen and Heidi Klum among its campaign faces, and says Kendall Jenner served as digital ambassador for 2024 and 2025. Not every campaign went smoothly. Italian and English Wikipedia both record that a 2009 commercial was criticised for using a rearranged version of the Italian national anthem for advertising.

Around the brand, the company became a group. Forbes Italia gives the sequence: Intimissimi in 1996, Tezenis in 2003 and a majority stake in the knitwear maker Falconeri during 2009. Il Post said in 2015 that Tezenis was aimed at a younger public at lower prices, that the group owned the wine-shop chain Signorvino, and that its latest purchase that year was Atelier Emé, the bridal-wear house. The group’s list now also includes the fashion label Antonio Marras. In August 2023 Forbes Italia reported a binding contract to buy the yacht builder Cantiere del Pardo from the fund Wise Equity, with the historic managers keeping a minority stake.

The Calzedonia group became Oniverse, a change reported by Sky TG24 and Forbes Italia on 4 December 2023. FashionUnited wrote that day that the new name reflected the group’s move into other sectors. Both say the name plays on the English word “universe,” is an anagram of Veronesi, and came with the help of an internal contest among employees. “We want each brand to have its autonomy while remaining part of a group,” Veronesi said, in our translation. Calzedonia S.p.A. remains the operating company named at the foot of the group’s website, and its name stays on the shops.

Design and documentation.

Hosiery and high-street lingerie are sold at close quarters. A pair of tights is usually bought in a flat packet or from a hanger, a bra from a rail and a vest from a folded stack, so much of the design work falls on the things around the garment: the pack, the hook, the shelf and the shop front. Type on a legwear packet has a practical job to do, since it has to carry a name, a style and a size in a small space.

Retail shapes the look as much as print does. Some names in this field are found mainly in their own shops, often in shopping malls and on high streets, where the shop front is the largest sign the brand has. Oniverse, the Italian group behind Calzedonia and Intimissimi, says it sells its collections exclusively through single-brand stores. Others reach customers through department stores, or as a concession inside another retailer: in 2005 the trade paper TextilWirtschaft reported Intimissimi shop-in-shops opening inside Victoria’s Secret in the United States.

Colour is often seasonal. A wall of tights or swimwear arranged by shade can work as display and stock at once, and a change of season can change the look of a shop without touching its fittings. Plain folded basics pull the other way, relying on cut, material and label rather than pattern, so that the same shop can hold both a bright display and a quiet one.

This guide sets out what can be checked about each brand: who founded it, who owns it and what it says about where its products are made, with the company’s own claims marked as such. The palettes and specimens here are our own.

Its own factories, its own shops.

The group says the entire product life cycle, from design through production in its own factories to worldwide distribution, is handled directly by Calzedonia S.p.A., and that it sells its collections exclusively through single-brand stores, directly run or franchised. It says franchise shops are designed in-house, with their design, style and materials regularly updated.

On manufacturing, Oniverse says its factories make about 82 percent of the items sold in its shops. It lists Italian plants including Vallese di Oppeano, Avio, Castel Goffredo and Gissi, and others in Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Sri Lanka, Bosnia, Ethiopia and Tunisia. The rest comes from outside suppliers. The group’s site says it needs to raise awareness among suppliers and sub-suppliers in the Far East, and that it sends them specifications and a code of ethics to accept. The Business & Human Rights Resource Centre’s profile of Calzedonia, with indicators last reviewed in May 2023, says Fashion Checker found no public evidence that suppliers pay workers a living wage, and also records that the company has aligned, or committed to aligning, with the Transparency Pledge on disclosing supplier factories.

The shop network remains the brand’s public face. Oniverse counted 2,233 Calzedonia points of sale at the end of 2024, 565 of them in Italy; the brand page gives over 2,200 stores in 57 countries. The whole group had 5,538 points of sale in 59 countries at the end of 2025, MF Fashion reported, with Mexico, the United States and Turkey the busiest for international openings.

Control has stayed with the founder. Il Post reported in 2015 that Veronesi owned 84 percent of the group and had told Bloomberg he had no plan to list it. The group’s site now says that none of its companies is publicly traded and that De la Costa S.r.l., wholly owned by Veronesi, is the controlling shareholder of Oniverse Holding, where he is president and managing director.

For a design guide, Calzedonia shows how a plain product name can carry a chain of shops, and how a group can outgrow that name while the shops keep it. Compare Intimissimi, its sister brand, and Falke, the German family hosiery house. For this guide we use deep lagoon, sand and a warm coral with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Calzedonia’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.