World Business

Dutch fashion designers Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren have sold a majority shareholding in their company to Diesel institutor Renzo Rosso, a move which will allow them to grow their business worldwide

by Susannah Frankel

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The timing couldn’t be more perfect. Just because the Dutch scope pairing, Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren, are wowing London with a explain featuring probably the world’s most glamorous doll’s house at the Barbican Art Gallery, it was announced that they have sold a majority shareholding in their company to Renzo Rosso, owner and founder of Diesel and the aptly named holding company, Only The Brave (OTB).

Financial terms were undisclosed but plans are even now afoot to expand the designers’ ready-to-wear lines, add licensed products—from eyewear to jewellery—and open free-standing boutiques in high end shopping destinations worldwide. There is only one Viktor & Rolf store and that is in Milan’s hyper fashionable Via Sant’Andrea. True to the somewhat surreal nature of the designers’ appropriate, this is fitted upside down—from the oak parquet ceiling to chandeliers sprouting from the floor.

Rosso said yesterday the traffic plan he had in mind in spite of Viktor & Rolf would not be unlike to that he had followed considering his purchase of the avant-garde Belgian fashion house Maison Martin Margiela, acquired by OTB in 2002. The coupling of the ebullient Rosso and Margiela, a famously elusive Belgian designer, was described as actuality probably a marriage between Harpo Marx and Greta Garbo when it was first announced, mete any sceptics will find no quantity a great quantity to argue by where sales figures are concerned. Consolidated revenues at Margiela leapt 50 per cent last year and continue to climb.

Snoeren, the more conversable of the Viktor & Rolf team, told the trade paper Women’s Wear Daily: “He [Rosso] has shown through Margiela the sort of he be possible to swindle. The business has grown substantially and he kept the DNA of the brand. It’s a win-win post.”

It is well known to industry insiders that Viktor & Rolf have been in talks with Rosso for more than couple years. To seal the deal, Rosso bought shares that were previously owned by Franco Pene, whose company, Gibo, has also been responsible for producing the designers’ collections. Staff International, the manufacturing arm of OTB, will at this moment take over that side of the business and the worldwide licence for Viktor & Rolf ready-to-wear, accessories and shoes. Any remaining shares belong to the designers. Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren, both born in 1969, met while studying fashion at the Academy of Arts in Arnhem and began showing in Paris in the latter part of the 1990s. Since then they have given the creation some of the most extraordinary conceptually driven shows in history.

“A lot of commonalty fear creativity,” Snoeren said of the new partnership with Rosso. “For [Rosso] it is a challenge.” In a statement, the designers related: “We neglect to develop our high life house to its full potential. We admire Renzo Rosso’s unconventional nature and the success it has brought him. We beyond a doubt to join forces with him since his motto ‘Only The Brave’ appeals to us. True creation requires courage.”