Etro’s new chief designer takes on a great legacy

uo meet the man with the euphonious name, you have to go east. First along Corso XXII Marzo, then continue along Viale Corsica. When you are almost at Linate Airport, turn right down Via Mecenata, into an industrial area, and left again into Via Fantoli. Journalists, buyers and influencers are waiting right next to a shipping company on this afternoon at the end of September. Here, in the very east of Milan, the first Etro show will take place today after the family business was sold to private investors. And it’s the first appearance of new creative director Marco de Vincenzo.

The wiry Sicilian stands before the show in a crowd of journalists. Is he excited before his premiere? “No,” he says with a smile, and something immediately bubbles out of him. “I didn’t have much time for this collection, but I tried to imagine what the brand means to me.”

“Utopia is necessary for progress”

You have to imagine a lot. Because Etro has built up a large sample inventory in half a century. It began in the revolutionary year 1968 when Gerolamo (“Gimmo”) Etro founded the company. Initially he produced fabrics for brands such as Walter Albini, Oscar de la Renta, Ungaro and Yves Saint Laurent. Then he turned his name into a fashion brand and specialized in the paisley pattern, which is both traditional and versatile, decorative and unisex, rocky and hippiesk at the same time.

Gimmo’s four children Kean, Ippolito, Jacopo and Veronica also grew into the company. Kean Etro, who could have been a philosopher for thinking fashion so deeply, was the men’s designer for more than three decades. And Veronica Etro, who studied at Central Saint Martins in London, designed women’s fashion for decades. See you this year. The last to step down from the big stage at the men’s shows in Milan in June was Kean Etro. In the end, not only the family shed tears. Backstage, Kean Etro exclaimed: “Utopia is necessary for progress.”

The utopias will be calculated more precisely in the future. Because just a few years after the 50th anniversary of the family business, the Etros sold the business to the private equity firm L. Catterton, which in turn belongs to the luxury group LVMH. Like Versace and Missoni, this brand is now part of a group, more precisely: a French group, as well as Gucci, Loro Piana, Pucci, Brioni and other Italian names. Fabrizio Cardinali, who has worked for Dolce & Gabbana among others, has been CEO of Etro for the past year.

More growth

In the year of the acquisition, 2021, the brand’s sales increased by 25 percent, according to Cardinali. And in the first half of this year, sales went up by 18 percent. “We want to increase the speed of growth,” says Cardinali in an interview with the FAZ. “In the first half of the year, we were only slowed down somewhat by the difficulties in Russia and China.” watch.