Ferrari da Varese

Just a few miles from the Swiss border, in the region between Lago Maggiore and Lago di Como, is the Italian city of Varese. It is in this picturesque city that Mario Ferrari started his own pen company, the name of which speaks to both his heritage and the pastoral place of the company’s birth: Ferrari da Varese. Mario Ferrari had been in the pen business for many years, selling pens and pen parts across the European continent. But he felt the urge to build his own brand to fulfill his entrepreneurial spirit and his desire to produce quality products with a flair for creativity and independence of design.

Now in its second generation, the company is in the care of Ivan, Mario’s son. “It feels like I’ve always worked here,” says Ivan. “I remember helping to box pens when I was in my early teens and visiting cus-tomers with my dad during school holidays.” But it wasn’t until well after he graduated from college that he began to work full time—in 1999, to be exact. The younger Ferrari became president two years ago. “It was the result of an evolution—and eventually sim-ply a formality,” he says of his appointment as head of the Ferrari da Varese. Part of that evolution was the company’s growth from a regional pen brand to one with global appeal. “Our company mainly fo-cused on the Italian market, and our production was less elaborate than it is now,” says Ferrari. “My wish was to enlarge our views, our markets and our pro-duction spectrum. I wanted to seriously address the luxury market.” He continues, “I have always been very curious about and attracted to other cultures, so I began to travel, meet new people and absorb new ideas and ways of perceiving things. To me pens were and are a cultural bridge that allows me to get in touch with people all over the world and exchange ideas on the widest variety of themes. This makes life worth living.”

The company officially became Ferrari da Varese in 1997, and that year proved to be one of great positive change for the brand. “We developed new concepts, a new philosophy, new designs and techniques, new materials, new catalogs—in short, a new company,” says Ferrari, transmitting the still-present enthusiasm of that time. “We are very proud to be building this company with the help of many people around us, in‑cluding our distributors all over the world,” he says.

Headquarters and after-sales service are still locat-ed in Varese, but production takes place in both that city and in Germany, where the Ferraris now own a production facility in Pforzheim, a seat of German jewelry-making. Thus, Ferrari da Varese products have a dual citizenship that is evident in the design and quality of the pens. And perhaps owing to the location of the German facility, some models have a distinctly jewelry-like look that appeals to men and women alike. The company uses traditional and pre-cious materials—gold and silver—for the manufac-ture of its product, but also uses natural horn, wood, mammoth ivory, enamel and lacquer. “Thus far, my father and I have been designing most of our pens,” says Ferrari. A successful collaboration took place recently with Luigi Trenti, the designer who created the Bugatti piece and shares a similar philosophy.

The Product
The collection comprises four distinct series: major lines, classic pens, exceptional pens and limited edi-tions. In addition to these, the company also offers desk sets and cufflinks. Savant, Yesterday, Magna and Cylindrino, Vetera, Botticelli, Spartacus and Conica fall within the major lines. The classic pens include affordable pens for everyday use—including some ladies’ fashion pens. The exceptional series comprise handmade pens in very small quantities made from precious metal or more exotic materials; these in-clude the Cigno, Aura and Clessidra.

Ferrari da Varese’s limited editions include the Varese, Romea, Europa and Aethra. “My father al-ways insisted that limited editions must stand out from the crowd,” says Ferrari. “I totally agree and cannot conceive of limited editions that are simply adaptations of something already on the market. In our view, they have to be a work of art—sometimes experimental, sometimes more classical, but always unique,” he says.

The sterling silver and green enamel Varese is lim-ited to 333 fountain pens and 333 rollerball pens. The sterling silver Romea recalls St. John’s Cathedral in Rome in its styling. It is available with diamonds on the cap (100 pieces) or with a cabochon (2,000 pieces). There are ten pens with an 18-karat gold cap in the precious metal and natural horn Europa collection and 1,998 pieces with a sterling silver cap. The exotic wood and filigree Aethra collection has seventy-five pieces with an 18-karat gold filigree and 1,920 with silver filigree.

Scott Franklin, of US Distributor Franklin-Christoph, says that the Ferrari Limited Editions have an appeal that reach beyond normal pen collectors. “We find the market very interesting for the Ferrari da Varese Limited Editions, and their more unique pens, because they reach into market segments that go beyond what we normally see in the pen industry. People purchase them as much for the art value as anything else. Individuals who don’t normally think of pens in this way, reach for these LE’s as they would for a painting or a sculpture. This is something you only see with a couple of other brands in the marketplace. Of course with Ferrari da Varese, they are also functional and of superior quality, the things pen afficianados also look for. Ferrari da Varese will grow as a player in the US luxury market, as they have in other parts of the world.”

The future of Ferrari da Varese promises more of the same in terms of cutting-edge creativity. As an example, Ferrari da Varese is introducing the Bugatti pens in 2006. Everyone knows the prestigious carmaker Ettore Bugatti whose cars wrote history up to 1939, winning major competitions and setting new performance & design standards. Decades after the production stopped and after years of preparation and innovation, the brand presented its new car, the Bugatti VEYRON 16.4 in September 2005. After three years of negotiations, Ferrari da Varese got the license to produce the Bugatti pens. The ability to produce exclusive, innovative pens—both in design and technology—is the challenge Ferrari da Varese met in its agreement with Bugatti.

Ferrari da Varese maintains an exclusive distribution channel to match their idea for partners to represent the brand in their unique vision. The combination of Italian and German heritage also make their products unique to the industry. The range, from $150 to $10,000 per item, is interesting to many segments of buyers. The quality and craftsmanship is evident throughout the entire line.

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