Santoni to debut at Milan Fashion Week – WWD

Santoni unveils an exclusive capsule collection for women during Milan Fashion Week, which runs September 22-28.

For this new project, the Italian luxury shoe brand called on shoe designer Andrea Renieri, who is expected to collaborate with Santoni for several seasons.

A graduate in industrial design from the Politecnico in Milan, Renieri learned his skills at Bally before working at Costume National for seven years, then at Dolce & Gabbana and Fendi, where he joined the men’s leather design team. In 2014, the designer made a comeback in the field of women, starting a fruitful six-year collaboration with Marco de Vincenzo, whom he met at Fendi, where de Vincenzo is still chief designer of the leather goods division.

“Andrea and I met through a mutual friend and we clicked immediately. We both share a deep love for beauty and excellence, which are the key characteristics of the Santoni brand, which I do not see as a fashion-oriented project, but as a luxury brand offering modern products, elegant and timeless designed to last ”, said Giuseppe Santoni, managing director of the shoe company that his father Andrea Santoni founded in 1975 in the Marche region. “I think Andrea [Renieri] has the qualities, skills and vision to further develop our cultured and contemporary idea of ​​femininity, working together with our very talented artisans, who have the capacity to create whatever we ask of them.

Renieri will be dedicated to the design and development of the women’s capsule, which will represent the high end of Santoni’s women’s collections, which will continue to be created by a dedicated in-house design team coordinated by Giuseppe Santoni himself.

With prices 30% higher than the rest of the collection, the capsule designed by Renieri “will help showcase our brand’s positioning in the luxury and exclusive segment of the footwear market,” Santoni explained, revealing that Renieri is already working on the fall. 2021 capsule collection.

Established as a brand of men’s footwear, Santoni invests heavily in the development of its women’s division, which accounts for 35% of the company’s total activity. “When we started with the women’s line our products had shapes and details closer to the men’s line, but now I think the women’s line has found its own very clear identity, which will be amplified by the capsules. designed by Andrea, ”Santoni told me. “I think since he started collaborating with us, Andrea has been able to immerse himself in our world, find a very personal interpretation of it, while sticking to our own DNA.

Santoni manufactures its shoe collections in its four factories – dedicated to women’s shoes, formal men’s shoes, sneakers and accessories respectively.

Expecting the end of 2020 to show a decline in sales of between 15 and 25% compared to 2019, when the company recorded a turnover of 83 million euros – “this will be the first in our history that we are closing with a drop ”- Santoni, like the majority of luxury brands, suffers from a lack of international visitors in the cities where it operates flagships, notably Milan, Paris, London and New York.

“Local retailers are performing better and we are making up for some of the lost sales in our stores with e-commerce, which we revived last year with an omnichannel strategy,” Santoni said, revealing that the directly operated online store accounts for 5 % of total business activity. Wholesale-focused brand, Santoni generates 20% of its revenue through its retail network, which expands in 2021 with the opening of a flagship product in the luxury shopping arcade Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in Milan , as well as with four stores in China, in Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou and Chengdu.

“China currently only accounts for 5% of our business, which means we have huge growth potential in this market,” Santoni said, revealing that the brand will open a store on Tmall in November.

Santoni realizes 20% of its business in the United States, where it introduced the omnichannel strategy in May, and the rest of its sales are mainly finalized in Europe and Russia. “Considering the overall complicated scenario, sales are going quite well in Germany and the Netherlands, where we are seeing little growth,” said the entrepreneur.