Sergio Rossi to relaunch men’s footwear line at next Pitti Uomo
Sergio Rossi is reviving its men’s footwear line, which was discontinued in 2015, when the Italian luxury footwear label was bought by the Investindustrial investment fund. At the time, the label’s new CEO, Riccardo Sciutto, favoured an initial refocusing on women’s shoes. The men’s line relaunch will be celebrated at the Pitti Uomo menswear show scheduled next January, in which Sergio Rossi will take part for the first time.
The label will deploy a major booth in the central forecourt of the benchmark menswear show scheduled in Florence on January 7-10 2020. “Now that we have reorganised the company and consolidated our women's range, we are ready to relaunch the men's line, and we’ll do so at Pitti Uomo; not with a mega collection but with a series of signature women’s products in a men’s version,” Sciutto told FashionNetwork.com.
“The goal is to work on three or four models, let’s say three product categories from the women’s range, that will be reinterpreted with interesting masculine connotations,” added Sciutto. Like for instance the SR1 moccasin slipper model, one of Sergio Rossi’s best-sellers since the label's relaunch.
To get this new project off the ground, Sergio Rossi set up a dedicated design team, consisting of one of its designers previously working on women’s shoes, and another stylist specialised in men’s ones.
Last March, Sergio Rossi opened in Japan a first store, located on the fifth floor of the Hankyu Men's department store in Tokyo, entirely dedicated to its new men’s line. “We wanted to test the idea and the market reacted very positively. This store dedicated to men's footwear only is going extremely well,” said Sciutto.
This year, Sergio Rossi opened flagship stores in Tokyo, London, New York and Chengdu, China. It generated a revenue of over €58 million in 2018, and is expected to top the €70 million mark this year, of which over 50% through its Asian business, especially in Japan and China. The label is planning to further extend its retail footprint with new openings in the latter country next year, in addition to other stores that are on the cards in Singapore and Macao.
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