About Duca del Cosma

The Duca del Cosma Philosophy

Duca del Cosma revolutionizes golf fashion and offers the perfect design for the new generation of golfers. Stylish, bold, classy, elegant and sporty – Duca del Cosma styles bring a breath of fresh air to golf courses all over the world and our cutting-edge technology for shoes and clothes guarantees top comfort for our most demanding customers.

At Duca del Cosma we develop with a lot of joy and passion unique and comfortable functional golf shoe collections with Italian fashion and sports functionality. Our collections are inspired by the Italian way of living and designed by the original founder of the brand Baldovino Mattiazzo, who safeguards the DNA of the brand. We strongly believe that a contemporary, high quality and comfortable shoe collection, excellent customer care and a healthy dialogue with our agents, distributors and customers are the pillars of our existence.

The Chairman’s personal email address is in every shoebox we despatch because we want our customers to have direct access to the man at the top. Every comment will be studied and given follow up.

Who we are

Sneakers for the golf course, innovative cross-over fashion suitable for sports and business. Duca del Cosma was established in 2004 by the Italian designer Baldovino Mattiazzo together with is wife Antje Elle-Mattiazzo. Baldovino graduated as one of the best students of the Sarteco Fashion School in Florence. They strongly believed that the traditional golf world needed a sophisticated and fashionable touch. An appropriate brand name became Duca del Cosma. Duca in Italian means Duke and is a traditional Venetian name. Cosma is a certain part of Northern Italy.

They created a sensational first collection in 2004. Since then, year after year, the company has continued to receive design awards whilst continuously extending and developing its collection, always staying true to its convictions. We have developed shoes of a previously unknown lightness. The amazing technical comfort of our collections provides the basis for your perfect play and Baldovino Mattiazzo’s design has brought the elegance and light-heartedness of Italian dolce vita to the world’s golf courses.

Only a few years after the foundation of the company, Duca del Cosma has become a leading international player. The company has been growing continuously as more and more golfers all over the world rely on Duca del Cosma’s style and technology. The company was acquired in 2016 by Frank and Caroline van Wezel.

Frank and Caroline van Wezel

Caroline and Frank van Wezel

Frank created the famous Hi-Tec and Magnum footwear brands and managed them for over 40 years reaching over USD 250 million on a global scale selling in more than 85 countries. Van Wezel is a well-known sports footwear personality whose biography is as follows:

Frank van Wezel was born in Vlissingen, The Netherlands, where he spent his childhood and adolescence. He was the youngest student in his year at Nyenrode Business University from where he graduated with honours, afterward fulfilling his National Service obligations as a Lieutenant in the Royal Dutch Air Force. He worked and studied in London and Paris before he started his career in East Africa where he stayed for 10 years.

After being transferred to England, his love of Squash and Tennis led to his involvement in the sports shoe industry where he was instrumental in the introduction of the first specialist Squash shoe, which subsequently led to the creation of Hi-Tec Sports Plc. Now more than 21 million pairs of this first shoe, still commercialised even today, have been sold since 1974.

The Company was floated on the London Stock Exchange in June 1988. However, Van Wezel decided to privatise the company in 2000 because he felt stifled by the demands for short term profit goals being a Public Company.

Frank was bestowed a Lifetime Achievement Award by the British Sports Trade. Equally he is Life Vice President of the Squash Rackets Association in the UK, an honour bestowed for the first time by the Association in recognition of the services he has rendered to the game of squash worldwide. Frank was also a founding member of the Faculty Advisory Board of the University of Bath’s School of Management. He was chairman of the Stichting Nyenrode Fund, a fundraising organisation for the only private business university in The Netherlands.

In 2013 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate honoris causa in Business Administration by the Anglia Ruskin University of Cambridge and Chelmsford for entrepreneurial and consistent international business leadership over 40 years.

Van Wezel and his family lived for more than 40 years in England.

Frank has two daughters and a son who all followed him in his footsteps in being entrepreneurs in their own right. The sports loving Dutchman enjoys Soccer, Tennis, Squash, Skiing and Golf. He is a director and main sponsor of his local professional soccer team Southend United and a sponsor of his local golf club. He also financially supports a couple of soccer clubs in The Netherlands.

By the end of 2016 Frank decided to sell his shareholding in Hi-Tec to American Investors and decided to acquire Duca del Cosma – the Italian golf brand – in order to continue his interest in the global sneaker business. He did not sell his beloved subsidiary in Southern Africa where he remains 100% shareholder.

Duca del Cosma features a line of technical golf footwear and a line of urban lifestyle golf sneakers for everyday and everywhere use. The company is based in Vreeland in The Netherlands and distributes in over 20 countries. It has currently about 40 employees.