SC: We loved your collaboration with Blossom Ski and Atk Bindings; are there any fields or brands you’d love to apply Passoni’s philosophy and craftsmanship to?
MV: Passoni do a lot of collaborations between brands that are like Passoni. We love to spend time with people like us; high craftsmanship, great artisans, or companies founded like ours, to create the best products on the market. We love to use THM components from Germany, Carbon-Ti components from Italy, 100km from here in my home town, and even when we develop new things, like our skis, we didn’t use the first company we found that creates skis; we found the best company in the Alps, still creating skis by hand. We only logos on brands like this.
SC: Could you tell us a little about the process behind building a custom frame for a customer?
MV: We work in two different ways. The first is working directly with our customers. They can come here, have fitting, choose components, see the production. Sometimes we let the customer choose the serial number of the bike, so if a customer has a lucky number they can put that into the bike. All of the steps can happen within the factory.
Of course, not all of our customers can come to Italy to have this experience. That’s why we work with dealers, trying to find the best shops in the world that can provide the same experience that a customer will have here. We never deal with super big shops, only with smaller, more boutique shops, with owners that are really involved with the brand, and understand who we are and what we are trying to do. It’s also very important that the dealers, like Signature, can provide a very high level of fitting. They need to know everything about geometry, and be able to provide us with a perfect bike fitting report.