Italian label Borsalino has changed hats and is now moving on.
Its new owner, private equity group Haeres Equita, is planning the relaunch of the Alessandria-based hat company starting with its fall ad campaign.
Shot by Italian photographer Joseph Cardo, the images juxtapose black-and-white background shots and color portraits of models — both male and female — sporting the brand’s fall collection, which includes the brand’s signature men’s fedora style and a women’s field hat in an animalier pattern. While channeling the brand’s Old Hollywood elegance, the collage-like composition spotlights the new course of the label, which superimposes on the past.
“Borsalino is unique in the world of accessories, its past is a wonderful magnifying glass with which you can build a new perspective of beauty and modernity,” noted Giacomo Santucci, fashion veteran, a former Gucci executive and a member of Borsalino’s steering committee.
“The hat is a super-contemporary accessory, able to distinguish style by itself. I hope this campaign can suggest new ways of wearing such an iconic piece,” added Cardo, noting that the images are conceived to reach out to different consumers.
A picture from the Borsalino fall ad campaign.
Courtesy Photo.
Images of the campaign will be previewed at each of the 10 monobrand stores (seven of them directly operated by the company), as well as on the label’s social network channels starting Sept. 10.
In July, in the wake of the acquisition, Haeres Equita executive chairman Philippe Camperio said, referring to the brand, that “the goal is wake it up and shake it.” Winning the auction set up by the label’s administrators through a deal valued at 6.4 million euros, the private equity firm ended the troubled journey that started in December 2015 when it first took over the hat maker, which had been hit by financial problems following the arrest of previous owner Marco Marenco for fraudulent bankruptcy and tax evasion related to a web of holdings.
Borsalino, which closed 2017 with revenues of 17.5 million euros, in line with the previous year, started directly distributing its collections in Japan last summer, as part of an expansion plan that includes the opening of a flagship in New York by the end of 2019.