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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER FROM ANDREA BATILLA

HERITAGE BRANDING ITALIAN STYLE

One of the major problems with Italian fashion is that it lacks historicity. Brands founded before 1945 can be counted on one hand, and even when they still exist, they aren’t always well cared for. Take Borbonese, for example—one of the oldest Italian brands, founded in 1910 in Turin and made famous in the 1970s for a particular suede print called OP. Try finding it on their website today among €285 bags that likely aren’t made in Italy—you’ll have a hard time.

Sure, there’s Gucci, Ferragamo, Pucci, and Fendi, but these are brands that were internationalized from the start, with continuous histories and, in most cases, ownership by mega-holdings.

If we flip through the September 1986 issue of Vogue Italia, we find a series of well-known brands that have either disappeared entirely or lost relevance: Krizia, Enrico Coveri, Gianfranco Ferré, Romeo Gigli, Luciano Soprani, Gian Marco Venturi, Complice, Fuzzi, Genny. In the September 1996 issue, we see Nazareno Gabrielli, Les Copains, Bagutta, Anna Molinari, La Perla, Ruffo, Mario Valentino, Alberto Biani, New York Industrie, Ter et Bantine, Cerruti 1881, Pollini, Piazza Sempione.

And the exercise works going further back to September 1976: Agnona, Cadette, Lancetti, Biki, Galitzine, Roberto Capucci, Mila Schön, Basile, and of course, Walter Albini.

All these names have specific stories and identities, often important archives, and at some point, for various reasons, either stopped or continued without fully exploiting their potential. All of them could undoubtedly become culturally and economically relevant again.

Since I started writing on my LinkedIn profile that I offer consulting on brand heritage, many companies have reached out to ask what exactly that entails. This is because in Italy, there’s a struggle to develop new projects from a historical perspective, which, simply put, means using a brand’s rich past to build a strong future.

The confusion begins with the word “heritage,” which translates to “patrimonio” in Italian, taking on an economic connotation. But its original meaning has more to do with what’s inherited—physical objects, symbolic structures, and cultural legacies. Early 2000s marketing called these “intangible assets.”

There are intangible traits that are easier to grasp and work with, but many of the brands I mentioned before, aside from having long and storied histories, also carry complexities that the Italian industrial and financial system is culturally unprepared to handle.

Let’s look at some examples.

Les Copains was born as a brand of BVM, a knitwear manufacturer founded by Mario Bandiera in Bologna in the 1950s—one of the most visionary and versatile enterprises of its time. Over the years, Les Copains collections were designed by Walter Albini, Karl Lagerfeld, Anne-Marie Beretta, Thierry Mugler, and Jean Paul Gaultier, while BVM also produced collections for Versace, Marras, and many others. Notably, Alessandro Michele started his career there.

Today, after bankruptcy, Les Copains has been acquired by OVS and turned into an in-house brand selling lurex open-stitch sweaters for €39.95—made in Bangladesh. The idea is to lend dignity to a fast-fashion project by using a well-known brand. Not great.

Gianfranco Ferré is the only Italian designer who worked with the Baroque—both as a historical period and as a style. He explored the realm of maximalist excess, returning a rational, elevated, enlightened vision. Maybe one day someone will stop calling him the “architect of fashion” and focusing on his white shirts and will instead do him justice.

In the meantime, the brand has passed into the hands of an Arab fund. On the website, you can find cute cotton dresses for $185, though the brand has the potential to become Italy’s Elie Saab.

Pino Lancetti was one of the most extraordinary interpreters of the Made in Italy movement, thanks to his talent as a print designer—a painter, really. His archive, wherever it is today, could be an infinite resource to reconnect with the 1970s, when haute couture and prêt-à-porter began to merge, offering everyday women the dream of dressing like Silvana Mangano.

Today, you can find flannel pajamas under the Lancetti label with the tagline “Confidenze da condividere” (Confidences to share).

We’ve largely forgotten this immense heritage—both historically and as a potential asset for an industrial system that’s quickly regressing into the role of a subcontractor, simply producing for others. Heritage brands in Italy are rare, but in France, a country that built its fortune on its past, they are not.

Let’s look at some examples.

Marie-Louise Carven, aka Carmen de Tommaso, founded her maison in 1945. Though she was ahead of her time, especially in marketing, she has little relevance in fashion history. Today, Carven is owned by Shanghai-based Icicle Fashion Group, interprets a concrete, wearable minimalism in the entry-luxury segment, and its last creative director, Louise Trotter, has recently moved to Bottega Veneta. According to RocketReach, Carven’s annual revenue is €74.3 million, and the acquisition cost Icicle €4.8 million in 2018.

Jean Patou, founded after World War I, became famous for its informal attitude and pioneering work in sportswear. Over time, it remained alive through its perfumes, eventually acquired by Procter & Gamble. Artistic directors included Marc Bohan, Karl Lagerfeld, Jean Paul Gaultier, and Christian Lacroix.

In 2018, LVMH acquired Patou, putting Guillaume Henry at the creative helm. Today, Patou is a contemporary brand selling one-shoulder dresses in recycled polyester made in Poland for €950 or balloon-sleeve tops in organic cotton made in Madagascar for €490. RocketReach reports annual revenue of €5.4 million, boosted by frequent appearances on Emily in Paris.

Jean Paul Gaultier, founded in 1982, is undoubtedly part of contemporary fashion history. Duran Lantink was recently appointed creative director of its haute couture and ready-to-wear collections. Owned by Spanish group Puig (which produces fragrances and has €4.3 billion in revenue), the brand offers 22 women’s and 20 men’s fragrances.

While haute couture collections have been a series of collaborations with designers like Simone Rocha and Chitose Abe of Sacai, the website offers items like a tattoo Marinière dress in printed nylon tulle for €560, a trompe-l’oeil corset dress made in Portugal for €500, and a black 3D spiral dress made in Italy for €850.

There are many more examples—Rabanne, Mugler, Kenzo, Lanvin, Vionnet—all with clear historical roots and recent commercial revivals in segments often unrelated to their original identities. This shows how a heritage brand can be a flexible, profitable treasure if managed correctly.

In contrast, the most commercially successful Italian projects in recent years are names like Golden Goose, Autry, Forte-Forte, Patrizia Pepe, Twinset, Pinko, Liu-Jo, Fabiana Filippi, Lorena Antoniazzi, and of course, Elisabetta Franchi. These are independent entrepreneurial stories—many successful and intelligent—but deliberately distant from any notion of heritage.

The reasons are many, but two stand out:

First, Italy struggles to confront its own past objectively—to observe it, understand it, accept it, move beyond it if traumatic, or embrace it if pleasant. We are a country that hasn’t yet come to terms with fascism and, at the same time, we are so overloaded with historical legacies that we lack the strength and time to manage them. But we should.

Second, we are enslaved by the concept of Made in Italy—the focus on craftsmanship, product, quality. None of these qualities have anything to do with identity, vision, development, or creativity. The meaning of Made in Italy is a national psychological block (I’ve written about this before) that could only be overcome through strong, systemic cultural action.

But let’s end on a positive note. A friend of mine who works in finance recently told me, “There’s plenty of money out there—people just don’t know how to spend it.” It struck me as liberating, maybe overly optimistic, but here’s my proposal: if any of you are thinking about investing in a fashion project, invest in a brand with historical value. And maybe make it Italian.