Ferrari races to become high-end fashion

Already synonymous with the sleekest sports cars, Ferrari made an offer to appeal to fashion buffs with a new ready-to-wear line featuring logos, monthly products and media partnerships.

Ferrari’s debut ready-to-wear collection will launch via a physical catwalk show in his hometown of Maranello in northern Italy on Sunday. The company has put together a team it trusts to cement the collection’s position as a serious fashion offering: orchestrated by Bureau Betak (the production company behind Kim Jones’ debut show for Fendi earlier this year), the show will be styled by Vogue Italia contributor Jacob Kjeldgaard, with global beauty director. Yves Saint Laurent Tom Pecheux and hairdresser (and Gucci favourite) Paul Hanlon watched backstage.

The event will coincide with the “Ferrari Experience”, which will invite guests into its new fashion boutique and, starting June 15, inside the new Cavallino restaurant led by Massimo Bottura, the restaurant owner behind the Gucci Osteria in Florence.

This is all part of Nicola Boari’s plan, Ferrari’s chief brand diversification officer, to “reach a wider audience and create meaningful business opportunities” — a goal he says was set out by interim chief executive and Ferrari heir John Elkann in 2019. (Earlier this week Today, Ferrari announced semiconductor executive Benedetto Vigna will take on the role of chief executive in September, with Elkann remaining president.)

It comes just months after Ferrari’s majority shareholder, the parent company of the Agnelli family, Exor, bought a 24 per cent stake in high-end shoemaker Christian Louboutin for €541 million and an €80 million majority stake in Chinese luxury brand Shang Xia, fueling speculation that they are planning to become a serious luxury lifestyle player.

Boari says Ferrari is entering fashion “as a lifestyle brand” [which will be] integrated with the core business”.

“We want to grow in a fairly controlled way,” he added, repeating Ferrari’s previously announced goal of expanding the non-motorsport side of the business (which also includes entertainment projects and client engagement) to about 10 percent of the company’s profits in seven years. up to 10 years. “That was before Covid, but we will try to keep this target of course,” he said.

Although automotive brands have recently started collaborations with designers, such as Mercedes-Benz with Louis Vuitton’s Virgil Abloh, a dedicated high-end fashion line with an in-house design team of eight is new territory for this sector.

Targeted mostly at a young audience, Ferrari’s collections consist of menswear, womenswear, childrenswear and accessories. It, like Ferrari’s auto division, values ​​”performance and innovation”, says creative director and former designer Giorgio Armani Rocco Iannone, 37.

That approach has resulted in a futuristic motorsport aesthetic that sees hooded anoraks slashed with vents, trenchcoats with reinforced back panels and jeans adorned with knee pads. It’s made from a partially engineered fabric from a plastic bottle juxtaposed with a vegetable-dyed skin. “They are technical fabrics but with a very sophisticated touch and feel, similar to haute couture,” says Iannone.

The collection is also emblazoned on the brand icon. In addition to the painted race car and Ferrari Cavallino’s signature prancing horse, which has been knitted and the T-shirt, the Ferrari name is emblazoned on belts, skirts and scarves. Ranging from €120 for a logo T-shirt to €3,000 for a hooded coat, this collection is by no means cheap, although it is certainly accessible to Ferrari vehicle owners, starting at around €200,000. Two young drivers for the Scuderia Ferrari F1 team, Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz, have been listed as stars of the collection campaign.

Ferrari has chosen to partner with the pioneering online agency turned youth culture publication and book Highsnobiety at launch to help them “reach brand lovers we wouldn’t be reaching,” said Boari.

Going forward, Ferrari will avoid the traditional fashion format of the biennial collection. Instead, it will reveal its annual collection in June, then follow the popular “drop” model favored by brands including trainer label Supreme and Kanye West Yeezy with a monthly capsule collection. It will be sold in specialty boutiques opening in Maranello, Rome, Milan, Los Angeles and Miami later this year.

The launch of Ferrari into the fashion world is one that Boari hopes will “create a stronger relationship with the younger generation which we believe is strategic from a business and brand value point of view”.

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