The son of Italy’s second-richest man talks about the survival instinct of America’s oldest brand.
Brooks Brothers has been around for longer than most brands in the retail industry. The all-American brand started in New York City in 1818 and has been a proud proponent of ‘made in America’ ever since. To date, 40 out of 45 of the United States’ presidents have been outfitted by Brooks Brothers, including Barack Obama and Donald Trump. In a way, Brooks Brothers is more synonymous with the United States of America than a hamburger is.
Yet, with such a storied history and a presence spanning two centuries, there were still firsts for Brooks Brothers to draw on to celebrate this year’s milestone. The brand flew to Florence, Italy in January for its first runway show anywhere in the world, showing offboth menswear and womenswear harmoniously. Fifty-one models walked to the tunes played live by the Italian Philharmonic including, of course, Alicia Keys’ ‘Empire State of Mind’.
“Brooks Brothers has never been a [solely] wholesale business. And normally, a fashion show is done as part of a selling process for brands that do wholesale—that’s the reason why we never did it before,” chairman and chief executive office Claudio Del Vecchio explains. But with a laugh, he goes on to say: “Now that we’ve learnt how to do it, we’re definitely not looking at having four shows a year. If we do [a fashion show], it’ll be some kind of annual event.”
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