From the happy smiles on the faces of the people invited to the Brioni party in celebration of its 65th anniversary at Milan’s Castello Sforzesco during menswear fashion week, you couldn't have guessed that another earthquake at managerial level was going to strike in just a few weeks' time.
Yet, last week, Andrea Perrone, Brioni’s chief executive and grandson of the company's co-founder Gaetano Savini, resigned from his job after leading the company for less than a year.
Perrone is not the first to go, though: Brioni saw different changes at managerial level in the last few years.
It all started with Umberto Angeloni who left his job as CEO in 2006, followed shortly afterwards by the resignations of Giovanni Galbiati, Brioni's director of worldwide sales and marketing.
In 2007, Brioni's U.S. president, Joe Barrato, left instead for a position at Polo Ralph Lauren. So, who knows, the reasons behind Perrone's resignations may actually be financial rather than personal.
Brioni’s problems started in 2006 when the company borrowed $100 million to pay former CEO Angeloni (husband of the granddaughter of one of Brioni's founders).
The massive debt load was definitely worsened by bad financial strategies: I’m not an expert, but competition is fierce in the fashion industry and, with the global recession, it would have been advisable to sell at least a minority stake to a very powerful luxury conglomerate (LVMH and PPR showed interest a while back, but no deal was ever reached).
Reluctant to sell its stakes and keeping on producing not only very expensive hand-sewn bespoke suits for the luxury market (the price of a custom-made suit can easily reach €6,000), but also unnecessarily expensive pieces such as a suit made from rare vicuna wool that featured white gold pinstripes (cost: over €40,000), Brioni probably did quite a few bad investments.
I’ve always followed the vicissitudes of this company first because of the quality of its products, second because its factory is located in Penne, a town near the place I was born, which means a boost for the local economy.
The Penne-based factory employs indeed over 1,000 technicians and seamstresses who take up to 22 hours (and in some cases 48 hours) to make a man's suit.
The Brioni company was co-founded by Gaetano Savini and Nazareno Fonticoli in 1945.
The company was among the first ones to be invited to showcase its menswear designs in Florence in the early 50s.
In its heydays Brioni boasted among its main customers quite a few famous actors, among them also Clark Gable and Cary Grant.
Re-launched thanks to the James Bond films starring Pierce Brosnan, Brioni lost in 2008 its fame of being the fashion house that spies favoured after Tom Ford was chosen to design the suits for Daniel Craig in Quantum of Solace.
Back in the news after providing the costumes for Tom Hanks in the 2009 film Angels and Demons (that also inspired an advertising campaign), the company is now awaiting the debut of the Spring/Summer 2011 collection created by its new womenswear creative director, designer Alessandro Dell’Acqua.
In the meantime, in mid-June Brioni celebrated with a dinner party (with 500 guests – among them many clients, businesspeople and quite a few obnoxious characters such as Italian journalist Bruno Vespa, devout admirer and supporter of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi…) its 65th anniversary at Milan's Castello Sforzesco where it also launched its Spring/Summer 2011 collection.
The latter is characterised by a palette borrowed from David Hockney’s paintings and features electric blue, lavender, eucalypt green, tangerine, ginger and amber nuances.
For the next season Brioni also re-launched men’s lace shirts, a must from its early 70s collections (when they were considered slightly too flamboyant…) and jackets in luxurious materials such as ostrich leather.
Shame the company focused on a party rather than an interesting fashion presentation that may have mixed quality and technology (in previous interviews Perrone often stated that today’s models do not have the charisma and personality models had fifty years ago and, while that may be true also given the age of many fashion models, it actually sounds like an excuse to save money for proper shows…).
Despite operating over 60 boutiques worldwide, with 400 wholesale partners, and despite having recently opened a shop in Tokyo, global recession hit Brioni, shrinking its annual turnover.
One easy way to make money, rather than by expanding and opening more shops, could be focusing on more accessible small accessories and fragrances.
Last October the company committed another faux pas by launching a new perfume inspired by Brioni's 1959 line of grooming products for men such as the “Good Luck” eau-de-cologne.
But the new fragrance, named Brioni, was bottled in an exclusive flacon produced by Empoli-based glassblowers and housed in a handmade Italian leather case that also featured a booklet about the company's history.
The scent was sold at an absolutely ridiculous price, $399 and $830, for 100ml and 300ml respectively.
I understand this was supposed to be a highly exclusive product, but fragrances are usually conceived as the most accessible products of the fashion design industry, things that even ordinary people who can’t usually afford buying expensive clothes (and that's the majority of us) may buy, so what's the point of putting into the market such a product?
At present the company is temporarily directed by Antonio Bianchini and while sooner or later the families that control the company may be forced to sell stakes, I hope that in future Brioni will make simpler and slightly more intelligent choices, like organising a proper exhibition with its archive.
At the end of last year, the useless and ignorant Italian Ministry of Culture (miraculously) acknowledged the Brioni archive as part of the Italian heritage.
Rather than organising another party with too many obnoxious guests, it would be maybe a good idea to put together an exhibition to show people vintage suits, sketches and drafts, rediscovering in this way Italian craftsmanship, design and sartorial style.
I'm sure that while many of us would benefit from such an event that could also be conceived as a tribute to the technicians and seamstresses who have made Brioni famous throughout the decades, a proper exhibition would also allow the company to discover new ways to properly present its new designs.
Maybe a half-submerged presentation like the one organised at the Waldorf Astoria during the New York World Fair in 1964 (see last pic in this post) would be too much, yet, at the same time, I guess it would be useful to remind the company's managers why Brioni was synonymous with radical designs and revolutionary catwalk shows.
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