A Diciannoveventitre

A Diciannoveventitre, commonly abbreviated A1923, is a Rome-based artisanal fashion and footwear label founded by Simone Cecchetto in 2006 under the name Augusta. Cecchetto arrived at the independent practice after working on footwear, leather and denim at Carpe Diem and on footwear and leather development for Rick Owens. Augusta’s first small collection was presented in Paris in 2006, establishing footwear as the centre of a practice built around material research, hand-intensive construction and the controlled ageing of leather.

By 2010 the same practice was operating as A Diciannoveventitre, with A1923 becoming its widely used shorthand. The change of name did not constitute a new foundation: Cecchetto’s authorship and the Rome atelier continued across it. Footwear remains the clearest core category, but the label also develops men’s ready-to-wear and seasonal accessories. Cecchetto’s 2023 professional record describes a formal rhythm of four collections per year, seasonal leather and fur development, pattern and technical design, atelier coordination, sourcing and liaison with factories in Italy, placing the brand between a seasonal wholesale system and the continuous development of recurring product families.

The label remains active in 2026 from Circonvallazione Clodia 88 in Rome, with current footwear and garments distributed through specialist international retailers alongside the official online presence. Contemporary production is atelier-directed rather than wholly self-contained: Cecchetto continues to direct design, material development and finishing, while current evidence also documents external Italian factories and artisans. The operating site is linked through its VAT number to Door 22 S.r.l.; the company’s shareholder structure is not publicly established in the supplied research.

A1923 begins with material behaviour. Cecchetto’s early work treated leather selection, tanning and finishing as part of design itself, and his later professional record continues to place tannery sourcing, leather treatment and surface development inside the creative process. Horse, kangaroo and other hides appear alongside vegetable tanning, hand painting and deliberately irregular finishes, with scars, density and tonal variation allowed to remain visible rather than being corrected into uniformity.

Footwear construction is similarly model-specific and exploratory. Historically documented methods include hand stitching, Blake construction, Goodyear-derived work, layered leather heels, doubled sole structures and experimental uses of wooden nails; none should be treated as a universal recipe for every shoe. The recurring forms are often dense and sculptural, but their purpose is not static perfection: wear, flexing and patina are expected to alter the object, giving the material a record of use.

That approach extends into clothing without turning the label into a conventional runway house. Leather shirts, jackets, trousers, denim and wool pieces use the same concern with weight, surface and ageing, while numbered footwear models can persist across successive seasonal deliveries. The brand’s long-used instruction, “Handmade in Italy. Do not handle with care”, condenses the logic neatly: the work is carefully made, but intended to be lived in rather than protected from change.