Lalín is a town located in the interior of Galicia, famous for its green meadows, for hiding the best restaurants to taste Galician stew, and for housing since 1963 the atelier, production and all the management of the men's fashion firm Florentino, when Florentino Cacheda returned there with his design degree under his arm and the determination to revive the family tailor shop.
At that time, it was difficult to foresee that this beautiful town accustomed to the rhythms of the countryside could project itself into the world of fashion, led then by the sophisticated catwalks of Milan, Paris or London. Pioneer of the success of the genuine and the artisan, with this anniversary the firm celebrates its seniority in Spanish fashion but its values remain anchored in its particular relationship with the Galician territory and in the family operation of a factory where every detail counts.
After traveling for almost two hours along mountain roads and inland villages, we are greeted at the factory gate by the youngest of the saga, Tino [also Florentino] Cacheda Pampín, a shy and intelligent young man who has directed the expansion project of the company and has just become its new CEO. Trained in business management, he is the first Cacheda without a thimble mark on his middle finger, "which does not mean that he does not know the basics of needle and thread," he defends himself with a laugh. "Since he was twelve years old, in the summer he helped in the store, although he did not have this clear vocation."
Until the appearance of Florentino, the parents and grandparents of the Galician women had been eluded by the beautiful right to give importance to their aesthetic appearance. The wedding, the job promotion, the communion of the children, the baptism of the grandchildren and even the suit to wear in the coffin —so important in Galicia—, have maintained the Florentine seal for three generations, and these well-dressed men have seen how his concept of elegance has traveled the world.
This is precisely what seduces in the slow speech of the founder, Florentino Cacheda, who, dressed as himself in a casual style that makes it impossible to put his age, speaks to us in Galician, full of charm and security. "Well-dressed will always exist and we try to give, in each era, a response to that demand," he reflects, "but perhaps now a nuance has changed: people do not try to dress according to their way of being, but based on what you see.”
The meticulous concern for quality is at the origin of that sixties designer who decided to go against the current and set up a fashion firm in inland Galicia. Today, from Lalín, more than one million garments are produced per year distributed by 54 own stores throughout the world. Seen in retrospect, it was a good decision.
“It took a bit because, obviously, in a town there are limitations that there are not in a capital, but it was very nice to contribute so much to this place. The women of my time emigrated to work, but they all knew how to sew. What I did was set up small workshops in the villages and that, combined with my experience as a tailor, allowed me to start." Then all of them were hired in the first Florentino factory, already equipped with machinery, where the hours and salaries from the incipient textile industry gave a new lifestyle to those girls."You don't know the number of married couples that came out of the break times!", he says proudly.
The beginning of the company can be found in a workshop that Florentino Cacheda created while he was doing his Military Service in the El Pardo barracks (Madrid), a town that at that time functioned as a "cut" for the dictator. Since there was money and power there, there was a need to dress well. But there was also a stroke of good luck: “In the military I coincided with another tailor with whom I was going wine. One day, in a bar, an elegant gentleman who turned out to be Galician like us and an officer in Franco's escort, upon hearing us speak Galician, approached us and offered us the chance to set up a business to invest his money. Florentino Cacheda and that other Galician tailor then created a workshop with the seamstresses from El Pardo. “I saved 50,000 pesetas, which was a lot of money back then. And that's how I got started."
After that, came sixty long years that have made them experts in overcoming crises. “The worst has been that of 2008, due to the brutal change in the market outlook. We were all rich before that, with what that entails for design and fashion. But the saddest has been the pandemic.” The evocation of the closed stores in 2020 casts a veil of sadness over the eyes of both, precisely that area of the face where genetics do not deceive. "Despite state aid, a factory like this would not have survived if it did not have its own resources," they say.
One wonders how it is possible to sustain all this for six decades in such a remote place, where the calm rhythms of life more attached to land than to money still prevail. Can Lalín still compete with China? "This issue is especially complicated," Tino interjects. “You have to have the ability to get the product you want, even by going to manufacturing sites abroad. Most of our manufacturing is European. And of course we would like to do everything in Spain, even in Lalín, but the reality is that it is not always possible”. Even so, the option of China would be a radically different concept from Florentino's hallmark. The founder is clear about it: “The key is in quality control. Most of the companies that buy in China do not have quality control upon the arrival of the garments. That level of care, in my opinion, is only possible in close proximity.”
Perhaps that is why Florentino's clothes are, indeed, immortal. It is durable not only in the sense of its quality, but in a design that tries to go hand in hand with the durability of the garments, and this is incompatible with the culture of the garment that dies with the trend. “We are clear about which side we are on,” says Tino, “and we are not going to give up on this, which is precisely what individualizes us. What sense would it make to try to compete now in a place where we have never belonged and do not want to belong?
The current Director General knows that he has to manage a time where the speed of change has to be made compatible with the essence of Florentino. “For us, the physical point of sale is vital, since our clients value the personalized service and the advice of a person who knows fashion, and this is not incompatible with online sales that can be useful to the same client. We are also attentive to experimentation in fabrics, where manufacturers are investigating and leading to profound changes, in the sense of environmental protection."
Of course, where the wool is, the rest should be removed. Florentino admires the warmth of the wool, its versatility and its good result in the appearance of the garment. A classic of good design that, still today, is key for the Florentine man. But who is that man? Traditionally, he was someone who liked to dress well, probably because of a liberal profession where the jacket and jacket were functional, elegant and versatile. But that client has evolved a lot. "Our goal is to dress men in such a way that they enjoy who they are," says Florentino, who, in terms of personal taste, like his son, has no doubts: he would never wear ripped jeans.
And there is no prospect of making women's collections again? “It's something to consider, despite having totally different rationales. It is not disposable, but it requires a very well thought out long-term concept.” This caution surely has to do with the expansion of the company, which began in 2015 and has just culminated with the recent opening of the store in Barcelona, a city for which Florentino feels a special affinity: "It's full of friends," he says, nostalgic. . Now begins a period of reflection aimed at starting a new stage, which, of course, will imply new openings, perhaps in Australia or New Zealand, for example.
“I love design, I love the company, I love fashion. I keep coming here at the same time as always, because I like it. It's my life." Florentino Cacheda sentence before the admired look of his son Tino. Perhaps that, above all else, explains these sixty years of style, class and joy.
