PONZANO VENETO, Italy — In postwar Europe, everyday clothing was a mostly drab affair in sober hues of black and gray. Until, that is, a certain family from Treviso and a pair of knitting needles came along.
Luciano Benetton, a twentysomething store clerk, convinced his younger sister Giuliana that the colorful sweaters she knitted for her family and friends were a business opportunity. They sold a bicycle and an accordion and used the proceeds to buy a knitting machine.
In 1956, they launched their own line of sweaters bearing the label Trés Jolie, a name evoking a vague notion of French sophistication. Nine years later, in 1965, the Benetton brand emerged and they opened their first factory to spin their celestial blue and lemon-yellow wool yarn into a fashion phenomenon.
“Right from the beginning, we felt that color could be an important factor,” Luciano Benetton, 71, the group’s chairman, recalled during an interview at company headquarters, a frescoed 17th-century villa just a short walk from the Benettons’ original factory. “There was nobody else who was doing anything similar. Men were still going to tailors…and women had their dresses made from paper patterns.”
Luciano and Giuliana, who later brought their younger brothers, Gilberto and Carlo, into the family business, sold to local stores before branching out with their own boutiques in the Sixties, first in the Italian mountain town of Belluno and then in France, Germany and England. Luciano said the family’s kaleidoscope of knits wowed retailers and customers alike.
“We wouldn’t just take a color that had worked and repeat it. Our procedure, our practice was to constantly change in order to win over the consumer,” said the executive, clad in an ink-blue blazer and white jeans.
Among the brands under the Benetton umbrella since Trés Jolie were Lady Godiva in the mid-Sixties and Jeans West, from 1972 until 1981.
The four Benetton siblings could not know that their family firm would grow into a nearly 2 billion-euro ($2.5 billion at current exchange) business, a controversial pioneer in the world of advertising and a fashion innovator in garment dyeing and logistics.
The Benetton brand turned 40 last year, but it postponed the celebration until now to coincide with the opening of a photography exhibition by Fabrica, the company’s creative think tank, called “Fabrica: Les Yeux Ouverts,” which opens today and runs through Nov. 6 at Paris’ Centre Pompidou.
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Benetton is hosting a fashion show and two celebratory dinners Tuesday night at the museum, inviting the likes of Patti Smith and Spike Lee along with about 1,200 franchise partners, business associates and journalists from around the world. The show will be streamed live on the Web.
It’s only fitting the company is celebrating in international style. Paris is where Benetton opened its first store outside Italy, in 1969.
Nearly everyone in fashion is buzzing about India and China these days; Luciano Benetton moved into those countries 15 years ago. Benetton stores that opened during the Cold War years thrived after the collapse of communism in Russia. The brand made a controversial pact with Fidel Castro to open stores in Cuba. Luciano said his company was willing to go anywhere he saw evidence of rising wealth, and he managed to find a franchise partner — even in a war zone like 1995 Sarajevo.
“People still remember it. The store was the only illuminated point in the city and it had sandbags in front of the windows, because otherwise they would have been shot,” he said.
The United Colors of Benetton brand name is so internationally recognized, one could argue it has more in common with Coca-Cola or McDonald’s than with its closest fashion competitors. Today, it boasts a sweeping international presence in 120 countries that far surpasses H&M, Zara or the Gap, even though Europe still accounted for nearly 84 percent of Benetton’s sales last year.
Ever the global visionary, Luciano said he sees an even more international future for his family’s company. Benetton already produces in China and India, each primarily for its respective domestic market, but production from those hubs could be further expanded over the next few years.
“Our goal is to have a more global management approach,” he said.
In its four-decade history, Benetton has been innovative on many fronts, from its round-the-clock production hubs to its inventive franchising model. But the company’s most lasting legacy will likely be its provocative and often graphic advertising campaigns from the Eighties and Nineties. Rather than just push clothes, Benetton and photographer Oliviero Toscani embarked on a mission to eradicate racism, fight social injustice and create plenty of shock and scandal along the way.
There were images of a black horse mounting a white one, a nun kissing a priest and people dying of AIDS. Many of the ads spurred censorship and protest.
In 2000, Benetton ended its partnership with Toscani shortly after a campaign featuring death-row inmates lost the company a lucrative distribution deal with Sears, Roebuck & Co. That development was especially significant since Benetton has struggled to regain the same level of U.S. exposure it enjoyed in the Eighties. The Americas made up just 4.2 percent of Benetton’s sales last year.
Toscani’s design studio declined to comment for this article, but the photographer has said he embraced criticism because it meant people were paying attention to his work.
Toscani told Parisian daily Liberation in 1995, “The misery of the world is exploited by Chanel and others, not by me, who shows people as they are.”
Today, Luciano continues to defend the Toscani campaigns, both for their messages and for the brand recognition they created. The company founder said it was hard to justify the costs of such large-scale advertising in the beginning, but it was ultimately worth it and he would redo all of them.
“I think that it is an extraordinary thing that people are still talking about advertising and campaigns that were done 10 years ago,” he said.
Still, Benetton has shifted its post-Toscani communications strategy to a tamer, more commercial direction. Fabrica has been creating Benetton’s ads over the last six years, emphasizing product close-ups and multicultural themes. Benetton’s Sisley brand, however, has kept up an edgy approach to advertising through the sexed-up images of photographer Terry Richardson.
Advertising controversies weren’t the only setback for Benetton over the last 40 years. The company stumbled on a costly and unsuccessful diversification into sporting goods, and Benetton sold the division three years ago.
The four siblings’ net worth is an estimated $10 billion — but not much of that comes from sweaters. Nearly all of their wealth now comes from various investments in telecommunications, highways, utilities, fast-food restaurants and other businesses. Some observers have argued the family got distracted along the way and Benetton’s fashion business suffered just as the competition was heating up from H&M and Zara.
“At that point, color was no longer enough,” said Stefania Saviolo, co-director of a fashion management program at Milan’s Bocconi University. “They were fast color,” she said, citing Benetton’s on-demand garment-dyeing techniques, “but fast fashion required a more integrated retail model.”
Although Benetton has always downplayed the competition, a series of factors have cut into the company’s profits in recent years. Weak consumer spending in Europe has hurt Benetton and the sale of the sporting goods business eliminated a significant revenue generator.
Still, Luciano said he’s bullish about the future, citing management’s target to grow sales 8 percent this year, to 1.9 billion euros, or $2.4 billion at current exchange.
While Luciano admitted that the company’s growth has stagnated over the past years, he said he’s confident Benetton’s Italian brand image and high-quality products will continue to win customers looking for less trendy, basic clothing, especially those in emerging markets like China and India.
“I think that Benetton is poised to resume growth quickly and keep pace with the speed of the market,” Luciano said, stressing the importance of transitional developments at the company.
In 2003, the Benettons said that the family was stepping back from the day-to-day management of their company to give chief executive officer Silvano Cassano more autonomy.
Luciano is grooming his 42-year-old son, Alessandro Benetton, to take over the business, although the elder Benetton has yet to set a date for the transfer.
“I think we have to continue with our tradition of being a family-owned company, but do it in a more modern way,” Luciano said. “The world changes and we have to change, too.”