Italian fashion house Missoni affected by attacks in Paris

http://www.businessworld.in/article/Paris-Attacks-Hit-Luxury-Brands-In-Europe-Giani-COO-Of-Missoni/20-11-2015-88543/
Missoni, a high-end Italian fashion house based in Varese, and known for its colorful knitwear designs was founded by Ottavio and Rosita Missoni in 1953. Emilo Carbonera Giani, Chief Operating Officer said that the horrific terror attacks in Paris have affected several businesses including the luxury fashion house.

He also added that the Missoni store’s sales have fallen sharply as it was also closed for some days because of the deadly attacks. It’s clearly a tragedy, one can be cynical in a retail, luxury perspective, and it will impact the sales in Europe. Maybe they can see an improvement in the middle eastern market sales, as a certain clientele who come to Paris to shop will now shop locally.

The Italian brand operates in a single or a two store strategy in most of the countries and cities like Paris, Munich, Delhi, and London except Italy where it has several stores. The company’s revenue is 50:50 ratio from retail and own brand stores.

Missoni opened its first and only store in Delhi at the DLF Emporio mall in 2013 through the franchise route and is planning open the second store in the next two years. India is not their first market but an important one like China which is their next destination, said Giani.

After India, Singapore and Indonesia, Missoni next market stop is China, where the luxury market is booming but Missoni is looking at multi-brand stores in China rather than mono brand stores.

China is facing a difficult economic situation, so they will enter the market in a different way through multi brand stores and eventually get into the mono brand stores, they still consider China as a very important market as the Chinese consumers are the biggest group of luxury market.

Giani went on to add that Chinese market is very cluttered and flushed with luxury brands. The reason Missoni took a long time to enter the market as it was waiting for it to space out.

Missoni has its own factory that is fully integrated, from growing yarn, the raw materials to product design to manufacturing. It is a market leader in knitwear clothing and has no competition in this kind of product from both technical and design point of view.

The consolidated revenue of Missoni is euros 160 million growing at the rate of 5 percent, as per the financials of the company this year 2014-15, out of which Europe accounts the largest 30 percent to the revenue, Italy contributes 20 percent, Japan, United States and Middle East accounts 10 percent each to the revenue, Korea is 5 percent and the rest of world like India, Singapore, Indonesia and others account for the rest 15 percent of the total revenue of the company.