Moncler’s Remo Ruffini thinks big, and knows how to put on a show with no shortage of extravagance. To draw attention to his megabrand in the past he has spared neither inventive energy nor means—staging a flash-mob-style performance in Grand Central Terminal, recreating a winter wonderland at Central Park’s Wollman Rink, and enlisting the Pendulum Choir, a Swiss all-male a capella group to. sing odd Alpine songs while dressed up in Moncler polarwear. An epic takeover of the Lincoln Center Plaza was held on an evening so frigid, the guests went home almost hypothermic.
After a hiatus of a few seasons, to recalibrate and possibly take a breather from such performative juggernauts, the newly engineered version of Moncler Grenoble was presented over the weekend in Skt. Moritz, the über-posh Swiss destination that Ruffini, an avid skier, has dubbed his “second home.” This time, he said he wanted “just a classic catwalk show.” Yet his proclivity for mammoth productions got the better of him again. For this “classic” show he flew in a celebrity contingent that included Kate Moss, Anne Hathaway, Willow Smith, snowboarder Shaun White, and Italian director Paolo Sorrentino, just to name a few, and limo-trekked them at dusk to a forest high above Skt. Moritz. The audience of around 250 guests was entirely clad in Moncler white padded capes and knitted pointy beanies (matching water bottles optional) at Ruffini’s request, “to make them part of the mise-en-scène,” and was treated to 91 looks (plus an extra 44 models joining for the finale). The models wound their way along a snowy foot path in woods bathed in red light, with plenty of son-et-lumière laser-beaming effects, and Maria Callas’s “Casta Diva” booming as the show’s score, and also aired through individual headphones.
Bookended by an all-white snowboarding ensemble on Vittoria Ceretti and a spectacular long-hair dégradé alpaca wool coat on Mona Tougaard, the co-ed show was proof of Ruffini’s ambition to give Moncler Grenoble a more elevated identity, with a spruced up repertoire for style-conscious outdoorsy customers, and cutting-edge technology research to further improve high performance capabilities. Variations on the theme were expansive, covering every possible winter-lovers’ option, from hitting the slopes to unwinding après ski at some chill hangout.
Ruffini believes that “quiet luxury will be around in fashion for a few seasons more,” so he kept the collection’s look for both genders, as he said, “in balance between the desire of being visible and remarkable, and that of being quieter and not overtly flashy.” Designed by a project team that he closely supervises, the offer of technical polarwear boasted a tour-de-force of creative surface interventions: intricate geometric intarsia recalled traditional quilting; Aran stitches gave way to padding effects; duvets were fully-fashioned in knit; alpaca and wool reproduced fringed, shaggy volumes; crocheted pieces were embroidered on technical textures; and flannel was laminated to make it fit for the slopes.
“There’s lots of complex technology involved,” stressed Ruffini, who five years ago bought a factory in Romania to keep production controlled in Europe. When he acquired French brand Moncler in 2003, undertaking a reset that elevated it to a luxury positioning, he remembered, “I didn’t worry about turnovers, my only dream was to make Moncler a great brand.” As of today, Moncler has a market cap of $16.88 billion. Ruffini may be a dreamer, but he’s quite the entrepreneur too.
