Fiorucci

Fiorucci Holdings Limited

Industry	Fashion
Founded	1967; 57 years ago (1967) Milan, Italy
Founder	Elio Fiorucci
Headquarters	London, United Kingdom
Products	Jeans, denim, underwear, sweatshirts and fashion lifestyle
Website	www.fiorucci.com

Fiorucci (Italian pronunciation: [fjoˈruttʃi]) is an Italian fashion label founded by Elio Fiorucci in 1967. The first Fiorucci shop exposed Milan to the styles of Swinging London and to American classics, such as the T-shirt and jeans. By the late 1970s, the direction of stylistic influence had reversed, and the Fiorucci store in New York City become famous for the foreign fashions it introduced to the United States. Known as the "daytime Studio 54",^[1] it attracted trendsetters from Andy Warhol to Madonna.^[1]

As a leader in the globalisation of fashion, Fiorucci scoured the globe for underground trends, introducing a newly affluent mass market to styles such as thongs from Brazil and Afghan coats. The label also popularised camouflage and leopard-skin prints before creating the designer jean market with the invention of stretch jeans.^[1] Advertising for these jeans usually featured a woman's buttocks in skin-tight denim, or in one case obscured by pink fluffy handcuffs, whilst the company logo was two cheeky angels modelled after Raphael's cherubs. However, mismanagement of the company led to receivership in 1989, and the brand was subsequently dogged by legal battles over trademarks. Several relaunches failed to make much impact.

Elio Fiorucci was found dead in his Milan home on 20 July 2015, at the age of 80.^[2] A month before his death, the brand was sold to Janie and Stephen Schaffer, who had founded the high street chain Knickerbox together in 1986.^[3] After an online Fiorucci launch and a campaign featuring Georgia May Jagger, a 5,000 sq ft destination store opened on Brewer Street in London's Soho in September 2017 during London Fashion Week. The launch party saw the Theo Adams Company transform L'Escargot, London's oldest French restaurant, into a world of disco, hedonism, and horror. The event was described by Women's Wear Daily as "the kind of party that many brands would kill for: achingly cool, outrageously oversubscribed and lots of fun."^[4] The following month Rizzoli launched a book entitled Fiorucci to celebrate 50 years of the brand, with a foreword by Oscar-winning director Sofia Coppola.^[5]