FROM THE GROUND UP

here is a time-honoured adage — indeed, one of the oldest in the English language, dating back to the mid- 16th century — that insists you can’t teach an ageing canine neoteric methodologies. Try telling that, though, to the trio of young, dashing entrepreneurs — brothers Sergio and Sebastiano Guardì, plus Alessandro Pagliacci — who in 2011 founded Barbanera as a start-up (and upstart) shoemaker rooted in Italian artisanal tradition that is open to external influences and possesses a healthy soupçon of youthful ‘attitude’. Since then Barbanera have been plundering the cultural high seas for inspiration (‘Barbanera’ is Italian for ‘blackbeard’,