Francesco Parisotto, a key figure in the history of Italian outdoor footwear company Scarpa and a pioneer of Italy’s Sportsystem, the technical footwear and sporting goods district of Asolo and Montebelluna, in Italy’s northeast, has died at the age of 98.
Born in 1927 in Coste di Maser, near Treviso, Francesco Parisotto started working in the segment of mountain shoes at a very young age. In 1948, he founded the San Giorgio shoe factory, together with his brothers Antonio and Luigi. In 1956, they acquired S.C.A.R.P.A. (Società Calzaturieri Asolani Riuniti Pedemontana Anonima), a company founded by the Englishman Lord Rupert Guiness and based in Asolo. Under the leadership of Francesco and his brothers, Scarpa grew into a leader in the mountain footwear sector.
Francesco Parisotto was a “protagonist and architect of the progress that made Veneto grow in the post-war decades, a noble father of the sports footwear district, a true model of a generation which, in times when hope was a luxury, designed a future of work and well-being with the intuition and industriousness that is typical of our people,” said Luca Zaia, the President of the Veneto Region.
