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Italian fashion house Fiorucci is ushering in a new era of leadership and direction following its acquisition by Swiss-Italian investor Dona Bertarelli.
Leading the brand’s next chapter is Alessandro Pisani, formerly an OTB Group exec, who has been appointed as CEO. Francesca Murri, a designer whose experience spans Versace, Giorgio Armani, Gucci, Givenchy and Ferragamo, has been tapped as creative director. Murri’s first collection for Fiorucci will be shown at Milan Fashion Week this September.
The rebrand centres on two main pillars, Pisani tells Vogue Business: elevating Fiorucci to the affordable luxury segment; and moving the entire business back to Italy, from operations to manufacturing, to allow the brand to boost quality and take a more creative approach to design.
Fiorucci was founded in Milan’s Galleria Passarella in 1967 by Elio Fiorucci, who was inspired by London’s Carnaby Street as a retail destination. Quickly it became a global success: the New York store was dubbed the “daytime Studio 54”, frequented by artists and musicians such as Andy Warhol, Madonna and Keith Haring.
In 2017, following Fiorucci’s death, the brand was purchased by British couple Janie and Stephen Schaffer, who relocated its operations from Milan to London. They opened a store on London’s Brewer Street during London Fashion Week in 2017 and pivoted the label to be more mass market, with affordable graphic T-shirts and hoodies featuring the brand’s cherub emblem and logo. The brand appointed Daniel Fletcher as men’s creative director in 2019, introducing knitwear and a broader men’s offering. Fletcher stepped down via an “amicable agreement” last month.
Fiorucci had some success under the Schaffers, with around 80 stockists across the world including Selfridges and Zalando and rising brand awareness among young consumers (the company does not disclose revenues). However, Pisani believes it still has untapped potential. “Listen, I don’t like to judge,” he says. “They definitely did some positive things for the brand, they activated a much younger audience. But now, we need to go further and elevate the brand. We need to completely change the content of our narrative.”
Currently Fiorucci doesn’t say a lot in terms of its aesthetic or positioning, says TikTok fashion critic Benji Park (@fashionboy). “Daniel Fletcher did a good job in menswear and it had a moment, but I don’t think that was enough to sustain a new era of the brand perception,” he says. “Now, with Francesca Murri who was previously alongside Alessandro Michele at Gucci and Riccardo Tisci at Givenchy, it will hopefully feel more authentic, aligned with the brand’s Italian roots.”
This includes being more consistent with Fiorucci’s heritage, which Pisani says was missing before, and being less merchandising driven with a more artistic approach to design (versus heavily commercial collections of logoed and graphic tees and hoodies). The brand will invest in a broad range of categories, including ready-to-wear, accessories and eyewear, with a focus on bags, which will be “crucial”, Pisani says.
Fiorucci’s operations will return to Milan from London, with all key people based in the Italian city and just a small London team left, for cross-city collaboration.
The brand will open a “Casa Fiorucci” in Milan, which will house the offices, a showroom and a creative hub where the brand can interact with other artists or labels, Pisani says. Plus, from September, Fiorucci will be 100 per cent Made In Italy, moving away from suppliers in Portugal and Turkey. This might not be the most cost efficient, particularly as they scale across categories, Pisani admits. “But we prefer to secure suppliers who are innovative, who can create the best quality and where we can fully trace the supply chain,” he says.
The new quality will see a price hike, too. The average price point of Fiorucci’s collection as a whole will be around €350, with T-shirts averaging at €150 (up from €90) and bags averaging around €700 (up from around €200). “It’s something that we have to do if we want to be credible, if we want to be made in Italy and we want designers to create something sold in terms of product development,” he says.
The concern could be alienating its current young customer base, who gravitate towards its €35 logo caps and €90 T-shirts and have become used to the brand’s commercial offering. However, Pisani insists the label will find ways to be more democratic, through “brand extensions or collaborations and entry level items like posters and stickers”, he says. “I do think that if Elio [Fiorucci] was doing the collection now, he would want to be in this segment. The segmentation and the polarisation of the market is crazy. We couldn’t make an authentic and credible creative project [at a lower price point].”
Fiorucci must uphold its characteristic inclusivity and youthful spirit, as these elements resonate deeply with a Gen Z audience, says Ben Gallagher, fashion critic and founder of The Luxe Collective, who regularly creates fashion analysis videos for his 1.4 million TikTok followers. “Creating immersive brand experiences and creative runway shows like Jacquemus has done previously could greatly contribute to Fiorucci’s quest for elevated status,” he says. “By curating engaging pop-up shops, interactive installations, and fostering collaborations with influential artists and tastemakers, the brand can generate memorable encounters that enhance its appeal to fashion enthusiasts seeking affordable luxury.”
Bricks-and-mortar retail has been central to Fiorucci’s strategy throughout its history, from the iconic New York store to London’s Brewer Street location. Pisani is taking a slower approach to a store revamp, focusing first on e-commerce and wholesale, to learn more about the customer before changing the store. “We want to understand the customer to understand the new store concept for Fiorucci, we want to study the opportunities starting from the third year of this journey.”
The DNA of Fiorucci stores, namely the London flagship, will need an update in order to align with the brand’s elevation, critic Park believes. “Currently, it does feel a bit high street and doesn’t communicate Italian luxury,” he says. “Ultimately, it’s an old brand and has a lot of archive and heritage. They need to return to Italian roots as an Italian house and tap into that DNA, that will give them that luxury edge.”
For now, Fiorucci is stocked at mass-market retailers including Zalando or Urban Outfitters and luxury retailers such as Selfridges and Farfetch. But, as the brand moves away from graphics and logos, it will naturally move away from more mass-market partners, Pisani says. “We want to reach 300 top wholesalers in the premium/luxury segment in the next three years,” he says. “We need a couple of years to prove that we are there and we are constantly launching credible content. If we do the job well, the growth will come immediately.”
Update: The story was updated to include comment from Ben Gallagher (@theluxecollective).
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