PARIS — MCM, a dusty relic of the Eighties, thinks it can become luxury’s latest Lazarus.
The German accessories brand has unveiled 50 handbag designs and a capsule women’s ready-to-wear collection by its new creative director, Michael Michalsky, who is also global creative director at Adidas.
The presentation in Munich underscored ambitions to elevate the brand in Europe and North America, where it has faded into a vague memory of black-and-gold, logo-clad bags.
Over the last decade or so, MCM, founded 29 years ago, has flourished in Asia, where sales last year were about $60 million, Michalsky said.
“What’s interesting for me is to take this brand with an image that’s been in the dumps and to make it interesting for people like me and my friends,” he said. “I want to build it into an international luxury brand, developing its German roots.”
Michalsky said he would emphasize a “quiet aesthetic that is about craftsmanship and nondesign.”
“I’ve reworked the logo a bit,” he said. “The logo is well-known.”
The relaunch is an international effort. Earlier this year, South Korea’s Sungjoo Design Tech acquired control of the brand and appointed Ralph Polese, a former Gucci Group executive who also has worked at Macy’s, as president and chief executive officer.
Michalsky said the plan is to open a flagship in Munich next year that would express the brand’s new direction and values. MCM also will host a showroom presentation during the next Milan Fashion Week, and hopes for a runway show in the near future, Michalsky said.
The designer said he would continue his role at Adidas, where he has been instrumental in bringing more fashion cachet to the German activewear giant through collaborations with Yohji Yamamoto and Stella McCartney.
“Adidas is very supportive and very happy for me,” Michalsky said. “Now they have a guarantee I won’t get bored. At Adidas, we’ve had luxury designers do sport clothes, so why can’t it be the other way around?”
Michalsky has already bridged the two brands, creating 250 pairs of limited-edition Adidas sneakers sporting the MCM logo that retail for 300 euros, about $353 at current exchange. Prices for the new line, which begins retailing this spring, range from 400 to 4,000 euros, or from about $471 to $4,717.
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“A lot of people know about MCM,” Michalsky said. “When I told my hip-hop friends in America, they said, ‘Yeah, More Cash More Money.'”
The brand’s initials actually mean the equivalent in German of “Modern Creation Munich.”