The story begins in 1885 – officially in 1887 88, according to the Chamber of Commerce – when Leopoldo Giusti buys out a hat shop. In those years Bologna, town of the “one hundred towers” and also of the one hundred churches, shrugs the papal past off his shoulders and opens via dell’Indipendenza, where, maybe not by chance, faces out the new “Cappelleria Giusti”.
The story goes on and in 1919 Armando, Leopoldo’s son, opens a new shop in the brand new via Rizzoli, created by the architect Rubbiani on the rests of the medieval “one hundred towers”; maybe the most representative street in Bologna. In those years rich of illusions, the lights of the new century bright the nights of the town, the “biasanôt” never want to back home. Legendary years, of a way of life totally bolognese, when Armando and his friends jump on a train directed to Paris and, discovering that the chef is good, they decide to come back in Bologna without getting off the train. Maybe these stories of friendship and the sake of beauty deserve some merit, if the elegant store in via Rizzoli becomes soon a match point of the culture and of the art of the town: in the splendid location liberty, firmed by Melchiorre Bega and by the painter Cadorin, are loyal costumers Arturo Toscanini, Tito Schipa, Beniamino Gigli, Ferruccio Tagliavini, Aureliano Pertile and many more. Armando Giusti, great passionate of lyric and able “public relation man”, ensures their presence together with the University world: all the Chancellors and the professors often visit the shop. Over the beautiful store and the beautiful clientele, Armando adds a portfolio of prestigious brands: Giusti becomes the first company in Bologna to import famous english brands like Lock and Tress.
After this period come the years, less cheerful, of the war. One only bomb falls in via Rizzoli and destroys the store. One year later, in 1944, Armando dies before ending the reconstruction. The bombs and the misadventures don’t carry away the sake of living of the Bolognese people and don’t bend the perseverance of Laura, a woman from Trieste proud and elegant, Armando’s wife, that in the 1945 re-opens the store. Some years later she is supported by the son Giancarlo: together, they begin to give a modern impulse to the activity and they introduce in the store other clothing accessories. The years of the war are more distant, Bologna changes habits, in the meanwhile grows the desire of things beautiful and elegant, and here it changes also the old store: the “Cappelleria Giusti” becomes a boutique of male clothing and moves in the prestigious Galleria Cavour. In the 2008 begins a new adventure in the historic via Castiglione.
If today the name Giusti is still a synonymous of “dressing well” in Bologna, if still today we have a clientele “from father to son”, that’s because we continue to hold steady the benchmarks of our history, of the company and of the family: the beauty and the art to know how to live.
