“Anniversaries are tricky for brands,” says K-Way co-CEO Lorenzo Boglione. “Because, by definition, you are celebrating yourself. That’s a slippery slope.”
That’s why when K-Way marks its 60th anniversary this year, Boglione’s plan is to share the spotlight. An exhibition entitled ‘In Y/Our Life’, launching 25 February during Milan Fashion Week, will see a group of international artists present their interpretations not only of K-Way, but of 11 other brands, too. These brands include Bic, Borsalino, Chupa Chups, Polaroid, Moleskine, Post-it, Scotch and Rollerblade. “The common factor is that they are all synonymous with their defining product,” says Boglione.
So too is le K-Way: look it up in both the French and Italian dictionaries and there it is, signifying “cagoule”. It was created in 1965, when Parisian Léon-Claude Duhamel dreamed up an alternative to the umbrella — a lightweight, waterproof nylon jacket that could be packed away in moments into a self-contained pouch. Cheap, convenient and colourful, these eye-catching jackets became ubiquitous across France in the decades that followed. “It was simple, democratic and for everyone,” says Boglione. Then, fire razed the K-Way factory in the early 1990s and it passed out of the founder’s hands.
Boglione’s father, Marco, acquired the rights to K-Way in 2004 for €8 million. His innovatively operated Turin company, BasicNet, was already operating Kappa and Jesus Jeans. Today, it also owns Superga and Sebago, among others. In 2023, BasicNet reported revenues of €396.8 million, of which K-Way represented €147.7 million.
Says Boglione: “It started from the packable jacket, and it has become a much broader proposition. We are doing well with skiwear and other outerwear categories as well as knitwear and T-shirts — now people are asking for shoes from us, too.”
To coincide with its exhibition at the Museo della Permanente, K-Way will also hold a runway show during Milan Fashion Week. The exhibition will then travel to coincide with cultural events including Photo London in May, Frieze Seoul in September and Art Basel Paris in October.
The anniversary comes at a moment of expansion for K-Way. “Currently 85 to 90 per cent of the business is in Italy, France and Belgium. There is a huge opportunity to tap into markets where the brand is known but the business is unexplored. That is one of the many elements that convinced an experienced investor like Permira,” says Boglione.
Last October, the investment fund completed a €190 million investment in K-Way, which saw it acquire 40 per cent of the brand. Permira’s input will accelerate existing plans to broaden K-Way’s reach, starting with the opening in February of a K-Way store on King’s Road in London. “If that works OK, it will lead to a fast roll-out in the UK,” Boglione says. Other markets will follow. “The absence of the brand is an opportunity, the lowest hanging fruit, in Asia and the US. But success alone in the UK, Germany and Netherlands, where there is already some brand awareness, could make the business plan happen. It’s a matter of offering in the right way. That is the plan we have ready to rock.”
K-Way jackets bear a highly recognisable visual code in the parallel stripes of navy, yellow and orange that decorate its zipper tape. These stripes are used across the product line to signpost its brand identity. Says Boglione: “Originally, its creators wanted to match the zipper tape and the colour of the jacket. After a very short while, they understood that was impossible from a production and cost point of view. So they created a tape that would look good with all of the colours.”
Another attribute in K-Way’s favour, especially now, is both its price point and lack of luxury’s airs and graces. The brand’s foundational garment is the packable nylon cagoule, christened the Claude after its inventor, and is among its cheapest products. The Claude retails for €140 and currently represents around 10 per cent of K-Way’s total sales. Boglione explains: “If you have an entry-level product priced at, say, €400 then your limit is the population that can afford it. But if you have a brand that offers a jacket for €140, when there are not too many brands that offer cheaper jackets, at that point it is the brand itself that becomes the limit.”
BasicNet has historically prospered by overseeing the design, marketing strategy and communication for each of its brands. It then sits between a long-cultivated network of manufacturers and global licensees to communicate orders for each market via a proprietary online platform. Permira’s investment has allowed it to speed up its previously planned pivot to a more conventional way of operating with K-Way. “We will retail mostly directly, although we will grow wholesale, too. We are bringing on people with that more traditional experience.”
Another consequence of Permira’s entry into K-Way is that Boglione and his family have allowed themselves cautiously to contemplate which other overlooked heritage brands BasicNet might consider acquiring and reviving in the future. For now, however, the primary focus is on a brand whose jackets you can already spot everywhere on the streets of France and Italy, and which BasicNet intends to soon become just as ubiquitous elsewhere. Boglione puts it this way: “Chanel is never going to be Chupa Chups. To be either would be wonderful, of course, but only one of them is for everyone — and that’s also what’s beautiful about K-Way from my point of view.”
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