Romeo Gigli is back in fashion with an upscale clothing line called Io Ipse Idem.
With courthouse feuds with previous owner IT Holding SpA well behind him, Gigli outlined his new project at a press conference here, flanked by chief executive officer Catherine Vautrin and Michele Denegri, ceo of Investimenti e Partecipazioni SpA (IP SpA), a private equity fund that is financing the project.
“I’m still myself and I’m very stimulated by this new project, which is small and will allow me a certain design freedom based on the shapes and fabrics that best represent me,” says Gigli, clad in a slim cut pearl gray suit.
Io Ipse Idem is IP’s first fashion stint as the fund primarily operates in sectors such as industrial products, chemicals and biotechnology. The name of the new Gigli collection’s Milan-based parent is DIWI srl, in which both Vautrin and the designer are shareholders.
“This project has a very precise identity and we wanted to create a slim, flexible, reactive and dynamic organization, which has been very helpful given the difficult times. It allows us to speed things up and guarantee high quality,” says Vautrin, who helped mastermind Pucci’s turnaround in her seven years as ceo. She left that company, which is owned by LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, last year.
Io’s fall 2009 men’s and women’s offerings will debut in Paris in January and March, respectively, but Gigli plans to skip a runway show in favor of an interactive presentation. The designer is no newcomer to the City of Light, where he first showed his namesake line two decades ago.
To test the market, this past June, Gigli created trial Io Ipse Idem collections for men and women of about 100 pieces each. He says it allowed him to fine-tune his design ethos, to better familiarize himself with his new partners and get feedback from international retailers. The collections were never sold.
In the new collection, Gigli continues to focus on his signature clean and graphic shapes. Skirts and dresses are printed and swingy, their volumes offset by elongated jackets that skim the body, at times cut with leg-of-mutton sleeves. Gigli also dabbled with shirts, another favorite item, and tempered their masculine appeal with spiderweb crocheted insets or applications of silk gauze. Tissue-thin silk knitwear, has cut out details or beribboned scooped backs.
Vautrin says distribution would initially focus on Italy, the Middle East and emerging markets such as China and India. Countries that have been harder hit by the financial meltdown like the U.S and the U.K. will be tackled later.
“Experience has taught me that these startups require between three to five years to work and become self-financed but all the retailers were very excited when they learned that Romeo was actually designing the line,” says Vautrin, who declined to give sales forecasts for the new firm.
