The upscale Italian brand, best known for its denim, has created a luxury emporium for men and women.

The owner of the upscale denim and lifestyle brand Jacob Cohën has survived a slew of tragedies in her life, but she’s never lost her passion for the brand or the fashion industry.

The Long Island, N.Y.-born and Milan-based Tommasi Bardelle is the widow of Nicola Bardelle who set out to transform the denim business with a premium jeans brand.

As the story goes, the Jacob Cohën brand was created by Nicola Bardelle’s father Tato in 1985. The family was considered a denim dynasty with a long history manufacturing jeans for some of the world’s best-known brands. They also created the popular Americanino jean that was centered around the American lifestyle.

But Tato Bardelle believed there was an opportunity to move into the premium market. So he established Jacob Cohën and named it in honor of Jacob Davis, the inventor of the rivet, adding the Cohen name to differentiate it from his other business and honor the Jewish heritage of Levi Strauss.

Although the Bardelle family had become one of the richest in Italy, they fell on hard times in the 1990s, lost everything and filed bankruptcy, Tommasi Bardelle said, and the Jacob Cohën brand became dormant. That was until 2002 when Nicola Bardelle revived the name with a mission to create luxury jeans for men. He used only noble and precious fabrics such as Japanese Kurabo and tailored, yet comfortable, silhouettes and personalized each pair with jeweled buttons, hand-embroidery, linings that traditionally are used for shirts and pony-hair back labels.

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