Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Diesel Buys Stake in Viktor & Rolf

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts
  • Faust
    kitsch killer
    • Sep 2006
    • 37852

    Diesel Buys Stake in Viktor & Rolf



    Holy shit - there is no stopping Rosso, is there?









































    Published: Tuesday, July 22, 2008

    This Must Be Belgium: Diesel?s Rosso Acquires Majority of Viktor & Rolf













    PARIS ? Meet fashion's newest trio: Viktor & Rolf & Renzo.

    Renzo
    Rosso, the Italian industrialist behind Diesel, has acquired a majority
    stake in the Dutch designer firm with ambitions to build it into one of
    the "top reference fashion houses of the future."

    Financial
    terms were not disclosed, but Rosso told WWD that he plans to make
    major investments to bolster the duo's ready-to-wear business, add
    licensed products such as eyewear and jewelry and open freestanding
    stores in high-visibility locations.

    "It's a new chapter to
    start building on the brand and to focus on creativity," said Rolf
    Snoeren who, with Viktor Horsting, began staging fashion performances
    in Paris in the Nineties, ultimately launching a couture collection in
    1998 and rtw in 2000. "We needed to team up with a strong partner to
    realize our dreams."

    WWD first reported that the designers were
    in talks with Rosso in September 2006, and the time it took to reach an
    agreement underscores both the complexity of fashion deals and the
    onerous workloads of designers, leaving little time for negotiations.

    "It's
    like a marriage: You have to be sure you have the right partner,"
    Snoeren said. "What we like most [about Rosso] is his openness toward
    creativity and out-of-the-box thinking."

    Rosso said he likely
    would pursue a similar business strategy at Maison Martin Margiela,
    which his Only the Brave holding acquired in 2002. The pairing of the
    flamboyant Rosso and the secretive Belgian designer initially raised
    eyebrows, but has turned into a successful partnership. Consolidated
    revenues at Margiela vaulted 50 percent last year to 60 million euros,
    or $82.2 million at average exchange.

    Snoeren said Rosso's nimble handling of Margiela was a "key factor" in partnering with the Italian.

    "He
    has shown with Margiela what he can do. The business has grown
    substantially and he kept the DNA of the brand. It's a win-win
    situation," Snoeren said. "But of course we are completely different
    from Margiela, and this is what he understands."

    Snoeren said he
    and Horsting held talks with other potential partners. Although he
    declined to identify them, Snoeren stated: "We noticed a lot of
    business people fear creativity, whereas for [Rosso] it's a challenge."

    Rosso
    acquired shares in Viktor & Rolf previously owned by Franco Pene,
    whose company, Gibò, manufactured the design firm's collections. The
    designers hold the balance of the shares.

    Starting with the
    fall-winter 2009 season, Staff International, Only the Brave's
    manufacturing and distribution arm, will hold the exclusive worldwide
    license for Viktor & Rolf's women's and men's collections of
    clothing, shoes and accessories. According to market sources, revenues
    at Viktor & Rolf are approximately 10 million euros, or $15.8
    million at current exchange.

    Rosso declined to give volume
    projections, saying his first priority would be to expand the product
    offering in rtw, ensuring the collection is complete across
    classifications. He noted a dedicated team of 15 from Staff already has
    been assigned to the task.

    However, brand extensions are in view
    via licensing agreements. "To be a brand today, you need to produce all
    the products a person can wear every day," Rosso said. "It can be
    jewelry, watches, everything: bags, shoes and accessories in general."

    Rosso
    said a network of boutiques also would be an ingredient in his
    expansion plan, "but you cannot open a store with just a few items."

    Viktor
    & Rolf operate one freestanding store, a 750-square-foot unit on
    Milan's Via Sant'Andrea with an upside-down decor: parquet on the
    ceilings and chandeliers sprouting out of the floor. The store opened
    in 2005.

    Rosso said Viktor & Rolf would represent the most
    luxurious brand in his growing fashion stable, which includes Diesel,
    its streetwise cousin 55DSL, Sophia Kokosalaki and Staff International,
    which makes and distributes Margiela, Kokosalaki, Diesel Denim Gallery,
    Dsquared and Vivienne Westwood.

    Revenues last year at Only the Brave surpassed 1.3 billion euros, or $1.78 billion at average exchange.

    "My
    idea is to build one of the most modern [fashion] groups for the
    future," Rosso said, calling Viktor & Rolf emblematic of what he
    labeled "new luxury."

    "They are much more modern, close to the
    new young mentality," he explained. "I believe much more in the new
    luxury that is less expensive, more approachable for the new upcoming
    consumer."

    Snoeren said he hoped the partnership would release
    him and Horsting from excessive business pressures, leaving them free
    to focus on design.

    "What we noticed working with L'Oréal [their
    fragrance licensee] is that a good business partner can bring
    opportunities that we ourselves could never realize," he said. "We want
    to achieve the same thing with the ready-to-wear."

    The
    designers' frustrations with the endless deadlines of fashion were
    voiced loud and clear on their fall-winter runway, with clothes that
    literally said "No" in their latest statement-making spectacle.

    Two
    of fashion's consummate showmen, Snoeren and Horsting are acclaimed for
    their conceptual and witty approach to fashion, incorporating elements
    such as fog, black light and makeup, pyrotechnics and cinematic blue
    light technology into their shows.

    Childhood friends, they
    started collaborating after graduating from the Netherlands' Arnhem
    Academy, initially taking an art-based approach that didn't always
    garner much attention. The designers were once so frustrated with the
    lack of notice they received from the press that they staged a strike
    in lieu of a collection ? plastering Paris with posters announcing the
    fact.

    They catapulted onto the international fashion scene when
    they started showing during Paris Couture Week, mounting spellbinding
    shows featuring clothes shaped like atomic-bomb clouds, decorated with
    foot-deep ruffles or covered in thousands of bells. For their Russian
    Doll collection in 1999, the designers dressed tiny Maggie Rizer
    rotating on a turntable in nine layers of crystal-studded finery.

    In
    recent years, they've layered on more serious business components,
    launching men's wear in 2003 and two signature fragrances, Flowerbomb
    and Antidote, with L'Oréal. In 2006, they teamed up with Swedish
    fast-fashion giant H&M for a onetime collection.

    Still, the designers recently have struggled to make the leap to fashion's big leagues.

    "We
    cannot do everything ourselves," Snoeren said, calling "a better
    product" the firm's first priority. "This is all a question of having
    the right partner with the force, the power and the know-how to do it."

    Snoeren
    listed eyewear, bridal and jewelry among his wish list for brand
    extensions, and noted that eveningwear would be an immediate expansion
    priority.

    And he did not rule out an eventual return to couture.
    "It's definitely something we would like to do," he said. "Who knows?
    We come from couture and this is something we cherish."

    SPRING-SUMMER 2008 AND FALL-WINTER 2008 PHOTOS BY STEPHANE FEUGERE AND DELPHINE ACHARD

















    Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde

    StyleZeitgeist Magazine
  • AX-OV
    Senior Member
    • Feb 2008
    • 219

    #2
    Re: Diesel Buys Stake in Viktor & Rolf

    did u see the diesel sneakers that are a COMPLETE rip off of the RO trainers???? its crazy how obvious they are...

    Comment

    • AKA*NYC
      Senior Member
      • Nov 2007
      • 3007

      #3
      Re: Diesel Buys Stake in Viktor & Rolf



      [quote user="AX-OV"]did u see the diesel sneakers that are a COMPLETE rip off of the RO trainers???? its crazy how obvious they are...[/quote]



      I also noticed that Dries Van Noten is knocking off the RO combat boot this season...

      LOVE THE SHIRST... HOW much?

      Comment

      Working...
      X
      😀
      🥰
      🤢
      😎
      😡
      👍
      👎