How Does "King Of Sports Car" Make Fashion? Ferrari'S Diversified Ambition

On June 13, Ferrari, a 74 year old sports car manufacturer, officially unveiled its first fashion series, opening a new era for the brand to explore in the field of fashion and lifestyle. It is understood that fashion will become one of Ferrari's largest investment businesses outside the automobile industry, and plans to make the profit of fashion business account for about 10% of the total profit in the next seven to 10 years. Nicola Boari, Ferrari's chief brand diversity officer, said Ferrari was trying to enter the fashion world and integrate with its core business as a lifestyle brand.

First impression of T stage

On the evening of June 13, Ferrari's first fashion show opened in the Ferrari factory in Maranello, Italy. This is also one of the few European fashion shows held offline with audience witness since the outbreak of the epidemic.

Rocco Iannone, a 37 year old designer and creative director of Ferrari, has worked for Giorgio Armani and PAL Zileri. This time, he has brought 52 models, and models have been walking through the assembly line of the discontinued "Spring Horse" V12 sports car. The graceful clothing lines echo the iconic smooth body curve of Ferrari sports car. The whole series focuses on sports function style, emphasizing the coexistence of individuality and practicality.

Ferrari launched the spring and summer 2022 series of advanced ready to wear line supermodel Natalie wojanova kusA to help the show. Visual China

Ferrari's iconic red and yellow color contrast throughout the course shows the bold avant-garde in line with the temperament of the sports car brand. The designer stressed that in his design, nothing is more special than silk and nylon with Ferrari logo“ Most of them are high performance technology fabrics, but they also have the touch of high fashion. " The most direct element that can arouse the public's "Ferrari impression" is the frequent deconstruction and reorganization of racing suit. For example, the grey and black dress of supermodel Maria Kara in the first-line-up of the show, in which one side of the bright yellow sleeve splicing comes from the racer's windbreaker sleeve, and other styles also see the racing driver's gloves as accessories.

In addition, Iannone also extracted old photos of classic racing cars from Ferrari's brand archives in the middle of the last century to make collages and rearrange them into prints on shirts, skirts and travel bags to play the emotional card. However, nostalgia does not mean backwardness. To comply with the current "logo craze", designers also play with the secondary design of logo patterns. Whether it's the Leaping Horse pattern of the brand logo, the conspicuous word "Ferrari" on the belt socks and other single items, or the repeated arrangement of small sports car patterns, all try their best to leave a highly recognizable initial impression of the T-stage, creating a futuristic racing aesthetics only belonging to Ferrari.

Redevelopment of audience market

According to the usual thinking, the target customers of Ferrari fashion series are roughly estimated to be locked in Ferrari's existing loyal customer group. They are mostly older consumers and have strong spending power - a place on the waiting list for nearly 10000 luxury sports cars, which start at about $200000 a year. The biggest characteristic of this group of people is that they prefer low-key and luxurious fabrics and stable and comfortable clothes.

In this series, Iannone's design is obviously against the intended audience. He boldly started with windbreaker, pilot's jacket and parka, and engraved the famous Leaping Horse logo on the back of the neck of the clothes; Or a subtle rubber trim on the pockets and sleeves, a tribute to the tradition of the sports car, to create a sophisticated look with street style.

In addition, his red and yellow Parka coats are made entirely of recycled and recyclable plastic, and the leather used in the collection is also provided by a certified "zero cruelty" supply chain, catering to the sustainability concerns of today's young people. From a stylistic point of view, Iannone sets the collection as "fluid": not only 80% of fashion is asexual, but it also has very flexible requirements for the wearer's figure - from XXX to XXL.

"The younger generation has the ability to express themselves and the energy to hold up a brand," Iannone stressed Therefore, Iannone's target audience is actually a group of young people who don't know the history of Formula One racing.

Looking forward to the future, Ferrari will avoid the traditional release form of two seasons a year, instead, it will launch the annual fashion series in June every year, and then launch the monthly capsule series following the "drop" mode favored by fashion brands such as supreme and yeezy. At present, the main sales channels are offline stores of Luisa via Roma and Ferrari in Maranello, Milan and Rome. It is reported that Ferrari is planning to open more stores in Los Angeles and Miami in 2021 and in China in 2022.

"We want to attract young and female buyers, and we target not only those who buy Ferrari cars, but also those who know our brand and its value." "Ferrari has never been a nostalgic company, it is always ready to grasp the spirit of the present and look forward to the future," Iannone told the media

Personalized marketing for women

Judging from the repercussions in fashion circles, Ferrari's first fashion series is undoubtedly a success. But at the same time, it also brings more questions to those who pay attention to it: why should the deep plough automobile industry venture out of the familiar track and try the water to "change business"? After all, in 2020, Ferrari earned nearly 3.5 billion euros in revenue and 534 million euros in profits - a pretty good number, and was rated as the world's strongest brand for the second time by brand finance, a British brand value assessment agency.

Nicola Boari, chief brand diversity officer, said that although Ferrari is one of the most recognized brands in the world, he does not take it for granted that the younger generation has the same awareness and enthusiasm for Ferrari as their parents. Moreover, as Iannone pointed out before the fashion show, although women have always been an important part of Ferrari's fan base, they have never been specifically targeted for personalized marketing. Nicola Boari told CNN there was no change in Ferrari's corporate strategy, and the show show series was just part of a brand diversification project. Ferrari is looking to create meaningful business opportunities by reaching out to a wider audience, "because it will be very important to our core business."

It is also pointed out that Ferrari's new fashion business is actually part of EXOR group strategy of its parent company Agnelli family holding company. Some time ago, EXOR group has made frequent moves in the fashion industry. First, at the end of last year, EXOR announced to increase the capital of about 80 million euro for China's luxury brand "SHANGXIA" and obtained its controlling stake; In March this year, it announced the establishment of a partnership with Christian Louboutin, and purchased 24% of Christian Louboutin shares for 541 million euros. Some commentators said that EXOR's various moves to increase the fashion industry have made people wonder whether it is building itself into another luxury giant that can compete with LVMH group and Kaiyun group.

However, John Elkann, the interim chief executive officer of Ferrari and chief executive officer of EXOR, the parent company of Ferrari, responded that the group had many interests and was also interested in creating a brand; Among brands, luxury is an interesting category. EXOR currently has a small financing project with small and medium-sized Italian companies engaged in food, cosmetics, design and fashion businesses, but has no plan to transform EXOR into a luxury group.

In today's highly commercialized market, brands can make customers believe in the stories around the brand and the lifestyle respected by consumer brands through story telling, marketing strategies and manufacturing atmosphere. In the past two decades, the "Ferrari" signboard has been put on a lot of miscellaneous goods for sale: suitcases, perfume, shampoo, T-shirts around the event, Ferrari logo veil for Saudi Arabia market, and even Ferrari computers, which inevitably give people the impression that the style of Ferrari brand products is chaotic and mixed.

Now, Ferrari has slashed more than half of its OEM licenses, retaining only the key partnerships that will be overseen by creative director Iannone to better maintain brand tone. In addition to the catwalk, this fashion show also held a "Ferrari experience" event, inviting customers to visit the newly opened fashion boutique and Cavallino restaurant. In order to upgrade Ferrari's brand temperament, the physical store in Maranello has also invited a professional design studio to carry out the overhaul, giving the facade a sense of modern vitality with red glass and white brick walls. Despite some doubts that these experiences may make the brand too approachable, Nicola Boari responded: "I think the real risk is that if we don't, we become irrelevant and unknown."

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