History and quality

We are a company with over seventy years of history in designing and manufacturing shoehorns and walking sticks. Our production stands for excellent quality and creativity.

SINCE 1946, A SHORT JOURNEY INTO THE COMPANY’S HISTORY

The OTTAVIO RECALCATI company was born immediately after the war when the founder, Ottavio Recalcati, after several years of experience as a cabinetmaker, began producing handles for umbrellas and shoehorns, using animal horn and ivory from South Africa, precious woods and natural bamboo canes. Until the end of the 1960s the horn occupies a predominant position in production, but, the dizzying increase in material and processing costs, simultaneously with the introduction of plastic material, irrevocably changed the very concept of production. Despite the use of new materials, the shapes and colors have remained as close as possible to the functionality of the original models, while maintaining the quality of the products. At the same time as the changes in production, a new market opens up abroad: with the boom of plastic, the shoehorns product enters all homes, becoming a common object. The shoehorn starts to be known everywhere and to be popular as a gift and in the shoe industry. The demands of the two fields are different, in fact the range of products intended for gift requires a continuous modernization and a constant variety of models. The gift sector is therefore the testing ground for launching new products with new colors and new subjects, that become widely produced and expand the company’s production in other sectors such as orthopedics. This continuous demand for new items becomes an incentive to propose increasingly sought-after items, such as the walking stick, entirely made by our company, which in the last decade is growing in importance and popularity. The continuous expansion of OTTAVIO RECALCATI led in 2018 to the acquisition of the production branch of walking sticks of Ambrogio Bernasconi Srl, historical Italian company known with the brand "Bastonaio Dal 1921". This allows to offer customers a wide selection of products and This puts the company to be “unique" in the world scene of the handcrafted production of walking sticks, shoehorns and household objects. Recent data confirm that the company sells more than 80 of its production outside the national borders, in particular in the countries of the European Community, in the US, in Australia, in Japan, testifying the high quality in relation to extremely competitive prices.

1955 - Laboratory

Our mission

Our mission is to offer high quality products, entirely designed and manufactured in Italy.

Subscribe to our Newsletter

Stay update with all our news, leave us your email address.