In a major strategic change Dsquared2 has ended its long-time licensing agreement with Staff International, the key operating company of Italian fashion billionaire Renzo Rosso. Who, in turn, has already sued the designers in response.
Dean & Dan Caten, by Giampaolo Sgura
However, six hours after DSquared2 announced the termination of its long-time licensing agreement with Staff International, the licensor sued the fashion house for breach of contract. The conflicting statements suggest that this issue looks like becoming a major court battle pitting one of Italy’s largest fashion empires and one of Milan’s hottest runway brands.
“Dsquared2 Group announces the immediate termination of its licensing agreement with Staff International S.p.A. Consequently, the Group will assume direct control over the production and distribution of its Ready-to-Wear collections,” the Milan-based house said in a terse release Saturday.
“This transition takes effect immediately and will commence with the upcoming Pre-Collection Spring/Summer 2026 sales campaign,” added Dsquared2, which was founded by twin brothers Dean and Dan Caten over three decades ago.
Staff International is the key production wing of Only The Brave, the holding company of Rosso, which also owns Diesel, Marni, Maison Margiela and Jil Sander, as well as the manufauring license of Viktor&Rolf.
“Dsquared2 Group expresses its sincere gratitude to all those who have contributed to this collaboration and looks forward to fostering continued partnerships in the future,” the release added.
However, later Saturday, Rosso’s group responded forcefully: “Staff International reiterates its conviction that the license agreement is fully effective and confirms its intention to fully execute it until its natural expiry. Therefore, the company firmly rejects any possibility of early termination of the contractual relationship, and believes that legal conditions for early termination do not exist.”
“Staff International will continue to act with the utmost transparency and determination to protect its rights, honour its contractual commitments and safeguard its reputation, and reserves the right to take any further action,” it added.
The agreement – which is said to last 25 years, with Staff International dates back to 2002, and helped fuel the spectacular development of Dsquared2, the last runway brand in Milan to have grown into a major global fashion brand.
Born in Willowdale, Ontario, Dean and Dan Caten (Catenacci, originally) began their career path in fashion by moving to New York in 1983 to attend Parson’s School of Design. In 1991 they arrived in Italy where in 1994, after numerous collaborations with major fashion houses, they first staged their debut runway collection. It marked the first in a long line of runway extravaganzas that would capture the attention of journalists and buyers for their unique brand of fashion, music and theatre.
The Catens went on to build a multi-million dollar business. And to dress everyone from Madonna in her iconic western video clip, “Don’t Tell Me”, to Beyoncé for her Super Bowl performance. The duo also has an impressive range, all the way to dressing the four-time English Premiership Champions, Manchester City. And a great HQ, a former electric energy headquarters converted into office, show-space, inn, gym and rooftop restaurant with swimming pool. They have become one of the city’s great fashion institutions without ever losing the DNA of the Wild North. And famed for their ovations, where they take their bow in matching outfits – whether disco dragoons, Klondike trappers or matinee idols.
Leave it to the Canadian duo to stage an epic 30th anniversary show in Milan this past season, the cast marching out of a wrecked brick garage, or arriving in a series of mighty wheels. From armored personnel carriers and Ford Mustang convertibles to an all-silver DeLorean and a vintage Rolls Royce – all took turns arriving in the huge warehouse done up like a nightclub.
All of the Caten’s great archetypes got an outing. Mad saucy trapper girls in giant puffers and lots of legs; a trio of rockers with Kiss goth makeup but in three-piece suits; Klondike gold diggers off to an all-night rave; sexy vampy rock goddesses with bumster leather pants and fur coats with trains; and a beautiful black rodeo gal with mini cocktail made of bands of Western belts. Leading to the arrival with sirens of NYC police car, from which emerged a dominatrix leather police captain played by Brigitte Nielsen escorted two white collar criminals. You guessed it – Dean and Dan. Before, amid huge roars, JT and Doechii took the floor in a call and response duet surrounded by the entire cast.
Renzo Rosso’s fashion holding company OTB suffered a setback in 2024, seeing revenues fall 4.4 percent at constant exchange rates to 1.8 billion euros, recording EBITDA of 276 million euros and EBIT of 44 million euros. Retail (+7.4 percent), Japan (+16.3 percent) and North America (+13.3 percent) held up. Among the brands in the portfolio, Maison Margiela (+4.6 percent) and Diesel (+3.2 percent) performed positively.
In the past fiscal year, the Vicenza-based company sustained investments of 77 million euros, with a focus on the expansion of the retail network and major innovation projects.
The possible departure of DSqyared2 will be seen as a setback for Rosso, who has long praised the brand as a dynamic creative force. Like every season, Rosso sat front row at the 30thanniversary show in Milan on February 25th.
“Staff International will continue to act with the utmost transparency and determination to protect its rights, honour its contractual commitments and safeguard its reputation, and reserves the right to take any further action,” read the last paragraph in Rosso’s company statement.
END. promised it would be going big on its 20th anniversary celebrations and judging by the fashion retailer’s itinerary of events it’s actually huge.
With three events already under its belt in the January-March period, there are over 20 in the pipeline for the rest of the year involving a programme of curated events, pop-ups, activations, collaborations and partnerships “crafted hand-in-hand with brand partners who have journeyed with END. over the last 20 years”.
Participants include a host of big brands including A Bathing Ape, Adidas, Aries, CP Company, Crocs, Needles, Puma, Salomon, Stone Island, Umbro, Universal Works, Y-3, “and many more”.
It’s all in recognition of a brand that has grown from an independent in Newcastle to an international name with flagship locations in Newcastle, Glasgow, Manchester, London, and Milan, “defining its position as a trailblazer bridging the gap between luxury and streetwear, balancing exclusivity with accessibility with its signature curation of the world’s biggest brands to the most sought-after emerging labels all under one roof”.
The 20th anniversary will also honour the brand’s North East roots and the best of British subculture “focusing on narratives deeply connected to the retailer’s heritage, customers and cultural influences, touching on nostalgic themes from the coast to the corner shop and nightlife to the classic British pub”.
Global threads manufacturing giant Coats Group is quitting its US Yarns business, resulting the closure of its Performance Materials (PM) facility based in Kings Mountain, North Carolina.
It comes after a strategic review of the wider Americas yarns business that has already resulted in the closure of the Toluca, Mexico facility in December. The review, which started in Q4 2024, concludes that the Americas Yarns business doesn’t fit with Coats’ future strategy, noting the exit from this non-core operation “will result in a positive annualised impact to both the PM and Group adjusted EBIT margins”.
The exit process is expected to complete in Q2 and Coats said it anticipates to generate a modest cash inflow, after closure costs, that will “allow management to focus on driving forward and growing other parts of the group’s attractive portfolio.
In 2024, revenues and EBIT for US Yarns was $68 million and $3 million, respectively.
Last month, Coats delivered a trading statement that highlighted “strong delivery, exciting medium-term targets with compounding cash and earnings growth”.
While the business reported a string of positives for the year ended 31 December (total revenues up 8% to $1.5 billion; apparel and footwear revenues up 13%; EBIT up 16%), it also noted that the PM business continued to drag across all North America end markets while there was also structural softness in North American Yarns.
The writing was perhaps on the wall for the future of its US PM ops in a statement that included that its Americas manufacturing footprint had been “right-sized” in Q4 with the closure of the Toluca site “to align to structural softness in North American Yarns [that will] drive immediate margin improvement”.
Poland’s biggest fashion retailer aims to double its revenue to 40 billion zlotys ($10.56 billion) by 2027, driven by the rapid expansion of budget brand Sinsay and its omnichannel strategy, it said on Thursday.
Reuters
“In three years we assume the company will be twice as big,” CEO Marek Piechocki said during a press conference.
Under LPP‘s new three year strategy through 2027, Sinsay is set to account for 75% of the group’s total sales, it said.
The Gdansk-based retailer aims to expand its store network to around 7,500 outlets by the end of 2027, with Sinsay stores making up around 6,000 of those, and to increase e-commerce sales to 10 billion zlotys in the same period.
“As in previous years, the company intends to consistently pursue its policy of sharing the profit generated with its shareholders,” LPP said, indicating plans to maintain its dividend payouts. The management recommended a dividend of 660 zlotys per share to be paid for the 2024 financial year.
The company also aims to double its core earnings (EBITDA) by 2027, compared to last year’s 3.67 billion zlotys, while keeping its debt levels safe, it said.
LPP’s revenue rose by 20% to 20.19 billion zlotys in 2024.
Entertainment8 years ago