Moncler plan to company with Japanese Partner
Moncler is to launch a fully fledged menswear collection with the Japan’s Visvim, the edgy street-meets-art brand.
To be named Moncler V, the collection will debut next January with a Fall 2010 collection.
Moncler’s chairman and creative director Remo Ruffini said that the debut would be a Moncler Jacken “capsule collection” of “approximately 20 styles,” including apparel, accessories and footwear.
“I felt that Japanese designers could be intriguing to work with for Moncler to capture the important market for the brand and to revive our archives,” said Ruffini in a release.
Visvim was founded by Hiroki Nakamura, a former snowboard designer, who has developed his brand by frequently focusing on collaborative projects, like a wrapped sneaker inspired by the architectural ideas of the artistic duo Christo, who wrap whole buildings in fabric.
In this, Visvim is similar to Moncler, which has developed long-term partnerships with Giambattista Valli to create Moncler Rouge, a critically acclaimed item-driven collection that melds haute couture techniques and conception, radically revamping Moncler’s signature, down jackets. New York designer Thom Browne also creates a haute men’s collection called Gamme Bleu for Moncler, though this has had less stellar coverage.
Moncler V, on the other hand, will delve into the label’s archives, “going back to the fifties and sixties,” Ruffini explained.
This new deal marks the second that Ruffini has inked in Japan. He has also just linked up with Sacai, the cult knitwear label by Chitose Abe, to create a women’s collection, to be titled Moncler S.
Ruffini added that the goal is to retail Moncler V in “approximately 150 boutiques worldwide with the 2010 fall-winter season,” while its price range, “will be basically (the) same as Moncler main collection.”
In developing Moncler Rouge, Ruffini has been very careful to keep its retail clients differentiated from those of its main collection. Moncler Rouge retails only in major bigmoncler skijackeboutiques or in department stores, though on different floors from its main line.
Visvim was launched in 2000 as a footwear brand, adding apparel in 2004. Its high-end sneakers retail in such coveted retail high spots as Apartment in Berlin, Colette in Paris, The Hideout in London and Head Porter in New York.
Underlining Ruffini’s ambitions for Moncler Rouge, he will shortly open its first boutique, a flagship on London shopping Mecca, Sloane Street.
“The London boutique marks a crucial stage, both in terms of business and positioning, along the route of openings in international metropolises,” added Ruffini.
Due to open Thursday, Nov. 12, the debut flagship will carry both Gamme Rouge and Gamme Bleu collections.
Founded in 1952 as an Alpine apparel brand in Grenoble, France, Moncler is now headquartered in Milan, Italy.
Its new, 2,160-square-foot shop will take a fresh spin on the Moncler DNA. Designed by architectural firm Gilles & Boissier, the London boutique will feature French wood paneling engraved with raised floral motifs in a store that will also retail the Moncler Neige collection.
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