How Diesel founder Renzo Rosso became Italy’s fashion king: from Marni to Maison Margiela
- While not as well known as LVMH, Kering or Richemont, Only the Brave is Italy’s biggest fashion group – and it’s all the work of one self-made founder
Renzo Rosso is a rarity in the fashion industry: a self-made founder. And not just any founder. He is the man behind Diesel, the denim label that Rosso – born into a farming family in the Veneto region of northern Italy – established at the age of just 23 in 1978.
While Rosso is mainly known for Diesel, over the last two decades he has been quietly building Italy’s sole truly global fashion group: Only the Brave (OTB), the company behind brands including Maison Margiela, Marni and Jil Sander.
While OTB may not be as well known outside industry circles as luxury groups LVMH, Kering and Richemont, it is one of Italy’s most remarkable success stories. Rosso acts as president, overseeing a number of CEOs and executives, including his son Stefano, the CEO of Marni and chairman of Maison Margiela.
For a country so steeped in luxury, Italy has lagged behind France when it comes to creating a luxury group that can hold its own against its French counterparts. To put things in perspective, Italian powerhouses such as Gucci, Bottega Veneta, Fendi, Bulgari and Valentino are all foreign-owned.
“In the Italian mindset, your neighbour is a rival – while the French mentality is to create a system,” Rosso told Style, while stopping by Hong Kong during the Art Basel fair in March. “But I have to say that Covid helped a lot to create an integrated system.”
Clad in a T-shirt paired with jeans, and sporting his signature stubble and unruly hair, Rosso – who is in his late 60s – has the energy and enthusiasm of a 20-year-old and is visibly excited to be in Asia after the pandemic kept him away from the region for so long.
“There’s a different mood [in Italy now], and we started a dialogue with other companies,” he continues. “In Italy we do have some groups but they’re not real groups – it’s big firms that have bought other brands. But OTB is built like a group and we produce everything.
“At the beginning, I also did the same and just acquired a few brands here and there. But then when I built the group, I really wanted the company to support each brand, so we hired some very talented people who function as consultants to each brand.”