Italian luxury fashion house Ferragamo has done business the old-fashioned way for decades with the factories that make its goods – "a firm handshake and a look in the eye".

And this very Italian way of doing business will continue even amid technological change and cost pressures, according to company chairman Ferruccio Ferragamo, who visited Hong Kong late last year.

With some blaming expensive production costs for Italy's economic troubles, the pressure for the country's highly regarded manufacturers to outsource to cheaper countries such as China is enormous. But Ferragamo, chairman of Florence-based Salvatore Ferragamo Italia, a luxury goods company founded by his father, Salvatore Ferragamo in 1928, is standing firm.

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