MILAN — Augusto Allegri, who helped turn outerwear into a cool fashion moment with edgy designs, died Tuesday night at his house in Vinci, near Florence, at age 68. The cause was cancer.
Allegri was vice president of Dismi 92, the Tuscan company that produces Allegri rainwear and outerwear, just like his sister Dianora Allegri, who will now take fuller control.
Their cousin, Pietro Allegri, is Dismi 92’s chairman.
An erstwhile family affair, the company was founded in the late Sixties by Allegro and Renato Allegri. In addition to its own collections, which linked with numerous designers through the years, Allegri is the outerwear licensor for Armani and Neil Barrett.
Notwithstanding his introverted personality, Augusto Allegri became the company’s official spokesman, explaining its strategies to retailers and the press.
“Over the years, raincoats have become part of everyday life and are seasonless fashion items,” he told WWD in 1997.
For him, that meant developing a series of high-tech and performance fabrics like “plume,” a supple microfiber with feather particles that doesn’t wrinkle, is waterproof and allows the body to breathe, along with waterproof cottons treated to look like leathers and a butter- soft microfiber that feels like suede.
It was this mix of technical materials and edgy designs that built Allegri into a major brand with sales of $68 million in 2004. Over the years, Augusto Allegri and his family tapped such designers as Giorgio Armani, Romeo Gigli, Katharine Hamnett and Martin Margiela as creative consultants. Most recently, it was Antwerp duo Filip Arickx and An Vandevorst, better known as A.F. Vandevorst.
“We wanted collections that rang with a clear fashion message and we picked A.F. Vandevorst because they are in line with our idea of elegance, refinement and quality,” Allegri said about their appointment in 2004.
That same year, the company invested $14.5 million to build a 61,000-square-foot headquarters with annexed state-of-the-art plant and to renovate a palazzo for its Milan base.
“We may not have chosen the best timing for these investments but we still believe we did the right thing, both design-wise and logistically,” Allegri explained at the time.
Related Articles
You May Also Like
Funeral services were held Wednesday in the Basilica in Empoli. Augusto Allegri is survived by his wife, Adriana, his daughter, Claudia, and son, Giovanni.