From the province to the European continent

1991 was a turbulent year for Zadar, a Croatian city caught in a strong wind of war unleashed by Belgrade against Croatia's independence ambitions. Against this backdrop of tension, Vittorio Tadei, founder of Teddy, Vittorio walked the streets of Zadar, unafraid of the impending war, firmly believing that freedom, peace and hope would reign: the latter expressed in the opening of a new clothing store for the city.

Tadei's idea of a future expansion eastwards dates back to 1989, when the fall of the Berlin Wall opened up new prospects for Eastern Europe. A native of Rimini and used to looking beyond the Adriatic, Vittorio Tadei was certain that the new emerging economies represented a great opportunity for his company. It was time to expand abroad after thirty years of building Teddy in Italy. Tadei began planning an expansion into Eastern Europe with his young collaborator, Endrio Marcelloni.

Marcelloni, who went from being a baker to a manager thanks to Tadei, recalls how Tadei showed him a map of Europe and explained that Italy had become too small for them. The idea was to learn about new markets and at the same time open franchise shops in Eastern Europe to sell collections that were not selling well in Italy. Under the Terranova brand, one store would be opened abroad for every ten opened in Italy. The choice of Zadar as the first stop was no coincidence: apart from the geographical symmetry with Rimini, there was also the implicit challenge of bringing their business model to a country that had just emerged from communism and was about to enter a new bloody phase of its history: to bring a little hope, beauty, optimism.

In fact, that same year, Teddy's first store abroad was opened in Alicante, Spain: it was a test bench for the whole company, and its success encouraged Tadei to continue the expansion.

In December 1991, Tadei, Marcelloni and Romano Semprini, Vittorio's childhood friend, took the ferry from Ancona to Zadar. It took two days to set up the 120 square metre shop. A new Terranova store was born, with Italian-made clothes and innovative furnishings, an extraordinary novelty compared to the sad colours of Tito's communism.

On the day of the official opening, 20 December 1991, while the world was witnessing geopolitical changes with the UN ready to send blue helmets to Croatia and Gorba?ev's resignation in Moscow, there was an air of expectation and hope in Zadar. Marcelloni vividly remembers the moment when, leaving his hotel, he saw a huge crowd queuing outside their shop. That afternoon, the first Teddy shop in a former communist country made 20 million lire, an incredible success that was repeated in the following days.

This success was an important milestone for Teddy, confirming that the business model developed in Italy could also work abroad. This success would have been inconceivable in the early 1960s, when Tadei started everything in a shop in Riccione, and hardly believable even in the 1970s and 1980s, when Teddy expanded along the Adriatic coast and then throughout Italy.

Expansion abroad, particularly in Eastern Europe, marked a new chapter for Teddy, consolidating its innovative and forward-looking approach to the world of retailing. Always ahead of his time, Vittorio Tadei proved that the courage to explore new markets and adapt to change can lead to extraordinary results, even in difficult and unexpected contexts such as Croatia, which had just emerged from communist regime and was on the brink of war.

Now, with the tragedy of war in Europe, Vittorio's teaching is more relevant and alive than ever: never lose hope, never lose that little bit of craziness, that little bit of courage, that little bit of vision that, especially in hard times, can light up the darkness and show the way.