Metalflex

"Del Vecchio wants to launch his production line, he wants Luxottica glasses, thereby also entering into direct competition with the partners of Metalflex, but with two different lines, injection-molded acetate frames."

"At Metalflex, they start to worry, "the foreigner" from Agordo has reached business sizes now similar to those of the parent company, whose secrets and limits he knows all too well."

"Luxottica, on the other hand, grows and continues to produce in its Agordo. But it's not all rosy. Relations with the partners are not idyllic from the start. From Metalflex, they send an accountant once a week to help with the accounts and payrolls. Leonardo does not want interference in the management. Cortà and Toscani fear his ambition; they treat him more as a supplier to be squeezed than a business partner. They leave him very low margins on their commissions, exploiting his work as a subcontractor to the fullest for the interests of the parent company. They push on the price, paying him less than 200 lire per frame, when at wholesale they cost 300-400 lire, recounts a witness of those years. They don't trust him, he's too enterprising. They swoop down on Agordo without notice to check what he's doing. When they arrive at the factory, they go around every workbench. From the office windows, they open the blinds to look into the department. "Make sure to look very busy when they pass, so they don't say we are doing nothing," Del Vecchio tells one of his most trusted boys. Del Vecchio doesn't lose his composure, at least not in public. Thanks to his great technical abilities and the technological innovations he introduces to the machinery to increase productivity, he manages to stay afloat regardless."

"⁠To the caution of the partners of Metalflex, he responds with the exuberance of a self-made man who is discovering that he can conquer spaces in the sector well beyond the simple supply of parts for frames.⁠"

"He has created his own market, he is ready to sell directly under his own brand, even to Metalflex customers."

"Relations with his brother and with Da Cortà deteriorate shortly thereafter. Checchi somehow feels betrayed by Del Vecchio's enterprising spirit, realizing that he has created a competitor in his own home, that continuing together means giving Leonardo the chance to learn all about Metalflex's commercial network and customers. They simply wanted a trusted subcontractor and a new production facility."

"At Metalflex, they start to worry, "the foreigner" from Agordo has reached business sizes now similar to those of the parent company, whose secrets and limits he knows all too well. And he is very, overly enterprising. He is not satisfied with a slice of the market, he wants everything. It’s clear they no longer trust each other."

"His approach to the area of Belluno during those months happens gradually. It is said that, before setting up the factory in Agordo, he worked for a few months at the Metalflex headquarters in Venas, in Cadore. They had him do everything, from delivering parcels to customers at the post office to receiving sales and purchase documents. Months of apprenticeship that allowed the man from Milan to better understand the industry from inside one of the leading factories. He didn't miss the opportunity to learn from the best. Leonardo took note of everything: names, addresses, people. He studied every detail of the industrial activity, understood who the most promising customers were, which products were the most popular. Information that would prove useful a few years later, when he would set up his own business and compete directly with his former partners."

"He is dealing with the game with the cumbersome Cadorino partners. A good part of the semi-finished products of the first Luxottica ends up at Metalflex. They are years of crazy and desperate work during which Leonardo dedicates himself body and soul to his enterprise, showing no consideration for anyone, they say. He begins to also produce for other Belluno companies: stamps, molds, handmade accessories, and parts of frames."