Walking with Words: The Beauty That Speaks to Us

There was a moment during Teddy Happening 2025 when time seemed to stand still. A runway. Attentive silence. Seven voices speaking from within. No clothes to showcase, no special effects—this year, what took to the "runway" were thoughts. Emotions. People. 

Teddy Happening is the annual event that brings together the entire company community to share visions, experiences, and new directions. A time dedicated to reflection, storytelling, and connection. This edition marked a particularly meaningful moment: the unveiling of the company’s new purpose—“to dress the world with beauty and hospitality, fostering personal fulfillment.” 

It's a statement of intent that gives concrete shape, with a collective and contemporary perspective, to Vittorio Tadei’s Dream. Beauty was chosen as the first of three guiding themes for this three-year journey: in 2026, the focus will shift to hospitality; in 2027, to personal fulfillment. As our communications director Matteo Lessi emphasized on stage, beauty is the natural starting point—it’s the lens through which we view people and the world, the way we shape and give meaning to what we do. 

Teddy’s President and CEO, Alessandro Bracci, made clear that the purpose is not a formal gesture but a concrete direction—one that comes alive through relationships, decisions, and small everyday gestures, rooted in an already deeply grounded corporate vision. 

That’s why we chose to begin here. Because for Teddy, beauty is not surface—it’s depth. It is not mere aesthetics, but perspective. From this conviction grew the work carried out during the Happening: a shared, emotional, living journey. A collective reflection built through listening, dialogue, and, above all, a symbolic and powerful moment given to seven voices from within the company. Seven voices, seven ways of seeing the world. 

Seven collaborators shared what beauty meant to them. They did so while walking before a full audience, accompanied by their own words playing in the background—a voiceover recorded in the days prior. A simple gesture, but loaded with meaning. “It was an intimate dialogue with myself and with others,” recounted Imen Belkhir Chouchane, “a balance between exposure and protection.” For her, beauty is a silent equilibrium: “when form, emotion, and intention meet without force. When everything seems in its right place. I’m not talking about perfection, but truth.” 

Renzo Bologna felt the same thrill. “We were outside our comfort zone. But it was also a rare privilege: to share something of ourselves and see others moved by it—it was indescribable.” To him, beauty is an emotional synesthesia: “the dawn between violet and fuchsia, the smell of coffee, the sound of rain. It’s everything that passes through us and makes us feel alive.” 

One voice after another wove an intimate, powerful, plural narrative. Giusy Di Matteo spoke of beauty in numbers. “There is art even in an end-of-year balance sheet,” a professor once told her. Today, she finds beauty in logic that works, in orderly files, in the invisible harmony of things done well. “Writing did me good. It helped me see my work more fully, to live it better.” 

Chiara Gaudiello, too, discovered something of herself while writing. “I’ve always found it easier to express myself in writing. And the most beautiful surprise was realizing that my words had touched people I barely knew. That’s when I felt what belonging truly means.” For her, beauty is art that remains, that continues to speak to you even when you look away. 

On stage, Veronica Pulga felt something familiar. “Usually I play a character. This time it was me. The caress I mimed was directed at beauty—and at the audience. Because without an audience, there is no show.” Her beauty is instinctive, irrational, overwhelming. “I find it in a work I don’t understand but that moves me. In lights, in shadows… even in dust.” 

For Alice Valeri, beauty is pure emotion. “You don’t look at it. You feel it inside. It’s a shiver, a discovery, a smile, a cat’s purr, the waves of the sea.” Her voice spoke not only of the journey just experienced, but also of everyday life. “At first I was anxious, it felt like too much exposure. Then I saw my colleagues’ faces, and felt strong. It was as if they truly saw me.” 

Linda Lorenzini brought to life the beauty of simple things. “It’s the sunlight on the white walls of home. It’s the freedom to choose, my family, my daughters. It’s here, in the way I live each day.” Her words were rooted in action and what she builds every day with interns and those who face more fragility. “Helping them enter the world of work is difficult. But seeing them succeed, seeing them light up… it’s everything.”

Seven voices, seven different ways of feeling, yet the same meaning emerged. That “runway” spoke more powerfully than any speech about what it means to “dress the world with beauty.” Because it revealed a company that places interiority, relationships, and truth at the center. One that gives space to feeling, not just doing. 

“When the purpose was presented to us,” said Giusy, “I realized that those values are not just in stores. They’re in training a new colleague, in meeting a team, in the way we learn to grow.” And Chiara added: “I feel like a small cog in a machine with a big heart—one that wants to last over time because it’s guided by true values.” 

Perhaps, truly, beauty is everything that makes us feel part of something. Part of a story, a dream, a project. And when someone gives us the space to tell it—walking tall—something unforgettable happens.