You know the super-colorful socks by Bandiera and Dall'Antonia, some even with paradoxical graphics, which are often seen in groups with the logo MB Wear? Hear the story behind it.
Twenty white socks
«The teams gave us socks that were quite uncomfortable – says Bandiera – which after two washes they had to be thrown away. So before leaving for the 2014 Giro d'Italia I turned to a company here and asked them to make me 20 white socksI wanted them to stay put, to stay soft, to feel like a second skin. My teammates started looking at them and asking questions. Then in Gippingen, Tiziano also joined the team and I found him in my room. And so I made him try on those socks..."
Dall'Antonia smiles from under the mask, as thin as when he ranHe says he's gained 10 kilos, but it's hard to recognize them. The room is a blooming of socks of every color and shape, with the MB logo in white on a black background in the center of the wall. We are in Maser, in the province of Treviso. The brand is named after Marco Bandiera (MB): it was he who had the idea, Tiziano recalls, and he didn't care about appearing.
«But I asked him where they came from – says Tiziano – and when they were returning home I asked him why it couldn't be made into a business.If I hadn't been a rider, I would have studied law. But since I had decided to run, even as an amateur During the winter I attended business management courses which were organized by various organizations in these parts. And so when Marco introduced me to the guy who produced the socks, we began studying the yarns and the riders' needs. And we arrived at a model in four colors."
Hidden in the garage
Thus begins a journey halfway between joviality and business acumen that led two former riders, good friends, to invent a brilliant business.
"The following year," Bandiera continues, "we trained in the morning and worked in the afternoon. We had rented garages under my house, in Montebelluna, like the Carbonari. On the ground floor was the Revenue Agency, on the first floor were the law firms, and I lived upstairs. But after a while, you couldn't get into the garages anymore, so much so that when we went down to work, we had to take out all the boxes. In the meantime, we had moved on. At the Alassio retreat, in early 2015, we were in the room with Gatto. We were talking about We needed a logo and we came up with it. In short, at the Giro d'Italia, which also started in Liguria, we showed up with two small suitcases and bags and boxes with the names of the teams they were destined for. The word had spread. In short, on the eve of the first stage Ellena enters the room with Garibaldi and the desire to talk about the next day's race, he looks at us and says: "Are you here to race or to sell?" We started laughing, but I did that Giro in a breakaway, to show off the socks I was wearing."
“Kwiato” iridescent
Word of mouth is the most powerful weapon. The foot is a delicate area, and the need for more comfortable socks could probably only be addressed by two guys still in the group.
«The companies that produce clothing – continues Dall'Antonia – considered socks as a trivial thing And for us, it was a great stroke of luck. The only problem was that we couldn't give them out with our logo, so for the riders who came to order them, we made replicas in the official colors. Kwiatkowski won the world championship in Ponferrada and sent us a photo with our socksUntil one day, we were leaving Giordana's office, when Marco got a call from Tegner (Quick Step's press officer at the time, ed.). He had ridden for that team, so I looked at him and asked: "Flag, what have you been up to?"
Gaviria's gaffe
Flag means flag, and it's the nickname Marco has lived with for years. Bandiera bursts out laughing and adds that shortly afterward he also received a call from Patrick Lefevere, the great leader of the Belgian squadron. There was reason to worry...
«What had happened? What Gaviria had taken the pink jersey in Sardinia, then the Giro had moved to Sicily. We had stopped racing the year before, in 2016. Richeze had called me, saying that Fernando wanted pink socks at the startIt was impossible to get them to him, especially since I was in Veneto. But I had a flash of inspiration and called Pozzato, who had several. And Pippo replies to me that he has them on and is going to the startI asked him to please take them off and bring them to Gaviria. And what does Gaviria do? He goes to the starting line where all the jerseys and photographers are. He takes off the team socks and throws them away. And he puts on ours. The photo went around the world And their sponsor posted a photo of the pink socks in the boxes on Twitter. They wrote that they'd made them too, and they were sitting unused in a warehouse, and it was sad to see their rider using other ones. I apologized to Lefevere, but do you know what kind of advertising?».
The lawyer in Jaguar
From that moment on, things accelerate. The two have stopped running, but they're still hiding in those garages, among increasingly bulky boxes. Still like coal miners.
«Until one day – smiles Tiziano – one of the lawyers from the first floor comes to stop by, with his Jaguar spider and his glovesWe saw him always looking around, but that day he asked us what we were doing. We explained to him and he he asked us if we were aware that we couldn't continue like that and he suggested we go look at a warehouse. He gave us the idea of looking for a real location. And even though we didn't like the first warehouse, we kept searching and we got here, while keeping production in Montebelluna».
The total look
In 2015, they started printing socks. Then they began to differentiate the models. Development has always been a blend of their own observations and feedback from riders. The Sahara model was born, which has the right amount of foam and thickness for the foot, but from the ankle up it looks like women's tights, so thin. The winter model is made of merino wool. In 2017, they added running and skiing models to the catalog, because those who cycle in the summer often do something else in the winter. Then came accessories like arm warmers and leg warmers. because customers requested themAnd so, with a policy of small steps, they also ended up producing clothing.
«But with caution – Dall'Antonia specifies – because in this case you are going against real giants, much bigger than us. We created the highest-quality models possible and started playing with the graphics. The idea is to create a total look, a style that makes the brand recognizableThen we made a jacket, a kind of bomber jacket that's great for riding an e-bike, while from September we'll be going out with a gravel line. It's up to us as a brand to make our proposal. We also have an all-black look, but always with our own fit criteria. And the last thing is the underwear, which we produce in Modena in a company that also works for other big names. And the incredible thing is that We developed the product with a neighbor of mine, in Follina. I didn't even know who he was or what he did for a living. He came to introduce himself and it turned out he did the same job for brands from Diadora to Specialized. Another train to catch, and we caught it."
For work and for play
They were 16 the first time they met. Tiziano had just started, and they entered him into a youth challenge. Marco was already racing, and since then, there's been no finish line where they haven't clashed. They were rivals as juniors, then teammates at Zalf. Fral was a professional from 2007 to 2016, competing for Lampre, Quick Step, IAM, Katusha, and Androni. Dall'Antonia raced from 2006 to 2016, competing for Panaria, Liquigas, Cannondale, and Androni. Then the sock game started to get interesting. Racing was no longer a challenge to conquer the world, but a pursuit of increasingly less important results. And they decided to change their lives. They started a family, and now they are planning to open a single-brand store Nearby, after covering global distribution with one distributor per country. The rest of the story is yet to be written, but the spirit is right. If we could show you the drafts of the socks that were never produced, you'd understand how tough the battle between business and fun often is.
