Stefanel

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An older Stefanel company logo

STEFANEL is an Italian fashion brand, especially known for knitwear, for women’s and, until 2011, also for men’s clothing and accessories, with its own production and chain of stores, which was founded in 1959 by Carlo Stefanel .

Company history

Carlo Stefanel (1925–1987), born in Ponte di Piave (near San Biagio di Callalta ), had made a name for himself in the Treviso region from the late 1940s as a wool and fabric producer and as a cloth dealer . In 1959 he founded his own company, Maglificio Piave, in Ponte di Piave . The company initially produced fabrics for other fashion companies. After Carlos' son Giuseppe (born August 31, 1952) joined his father's company in the 1970s, the reorganization of the company began. For the first time own clothing was produced and sold to retailers . Among other things, Giuseppe was responsible for the new youthful Linea Sigma line from 1975 and took over management of the company in 1979. It was only at this time that the family name became a brand name, and from 1983 the company was also officially called Stefanel .

The first Stefanel store opened in 1980 in Siena , and in 1982 the first international store opened in Paris . From then on, Stefanel fashion was only available in Stefanel stores. 1987, the company went to Milan to the stock market . After a period of rapid growth, there were already 800 Stefanel stores worldwide - mostly as franchises . In 1987 Stefanel expanded to the American continent; the first Stefanel store opened in New York City that same year . Stefanel's main market was and is Italy, where there were over 550 Stefanel boutiques at the end of the 1980s. The Asian market was captured through a joint venture with Onward Kashiyama in 1989.

From the 1990s onwards, the company tried to expand its portfolio under pressure from competition : In 1990, Stefanel acquired the Italian clothing manufacturer Interfashion . From 1990 to 2008, the company also held the license for clothing for the Marithé & Francois Girbaud (MFG) brand . From the beginning of the 1990s, the ultimately less lucrative licenses for the second fashion lines from Calvin Klein ( cK Calvin Klein ; 1995-2001) and Romeo Gigli ( G Gigli ; 1990-1999) as well as the sportswear line from Converse were at Stefanel. The American business turned out to be a disappointment, although the group was otherwise steadily growing: in 1992, only four of over 100 stores in the USA were left. Stefanel's fiercest competitors were Benetton and DIESEL , which overtook Stefanel in the mid-1990s. In 1996, Stefanel slipped into the red, which is why around 500 mostly smaller stores were closed worldwide. In the late 1990s there were also rumors that the French luxury goods company LVMH would take over Stefanel.

At the beginning of 2000, the Stefanel Group took over the German clothing company Hallhuber for 35 million DM, which, however, was sold on for more than 25 million euros in 2009. The children's collection by Stefanel was discontinued during this time. From 2002 to 2011 Stefanel also held stakes in duty-free shops (50 percent stake in The Nuance Group ). The duty free division made up 70 percent of the total turnover of the Stefanel group and stabilized the balance sheet . Stefanel sold the Nuance stake in 2011 for around 110 million euros. In 2007 Interfashion launched the fashion brand HIGH , which gave Stefanel very good numbers at the beginning of 2011, although the core brand Stefanel generated high losses. Since 2007, Interfashion has also owned the license for the second line of the Sardinian designer Antonio Marras ( KENZO designer until 2011 ) called I'M Isola Marras . In 2009 Stefanel celebrated its 50th anniversary. In 2011 the men's fashion division was discontinued. In September 2013, Federico Girotto succeeded Luciano Santel as CEO, who moved to the down jacket manufacturer Moncler as COO.

At the turn of the century , the company operated 1,000 stores in 56 countries. At the end of 2010, the group employed 1630 people worldwide, compared to 4207 at the end of 2002. At the end of 2010, Stefanel still had 506 fashion stores, including in Italy, Portugal , Spain , Switzerland , Sweden , Germany , Turkey and Korea . In Germany there is Stefanel GmbH , whose headquarters were in Mannheim until 2000 and which was relocated to Munich with the Hallhuber takeover . Massimo Tobaldo has been the managing director since 2007. In 2011 there were still 23 Stefanel stores and four outlets in Germany .

In November 2016 it became known that the company had applied for bankruptcy protection.

Giovanna Stefanel, daughter of Carlo and sister of Giuseppe and a member of the supervisory board of the Stefanel Group, has been married to the German real estate investor Ludwig Stoffel since 2005 and lives in Berlin.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Stefanel: CEO Luciano Santel changes to Moncler ( Memento of December 11, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), Europolitan , September 13, 2013
  2. ↑ Stefanel applies for bankruptcy protection
  3. ↑ Elisabeth Binder: Giovanna Stefanel-Stoffel is a designer star - she helps children in India. This is becoming fashionable. Der Tagesspiegel, August 3, 2011 : “She has dedicated her life to her job for a long time. When she got to know her husband, she found later family happiness in Nepal. It promotes the children and helps the parents at home. ";
  4. ↑ Vision and Realization. www.stofanel.de;