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
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