Diesel S.p.A. is an Italian retail clothing company, located in Breganze, Italy. It sells denim and other clothing, footwear, and accessories. The clothing line has two different brands: Diesel and Diesel Black Gold. There is also a line for children, called Diesel Kid. The company is known for its surreal advertising campaigns.

Diesel USA filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in March 2019. Its parent company, Diesel SpA, was not part of the bankruptcy filing.

Belgian designer Glenn Martens was appointed artistic director of Diesel in October 2020.

Beginnings

Diesel founder Renzo Rosso began stitching jeans on a sewing machine at the age of fifteen. He used his mother's sewing machine to produce low-riding, bell bottomed jeans, which he would wear himself and sell to his friends for 3500 lire a piece. He later attended an industrial textile manufacturing high school in Padua.

In 1976 Rosso began working for a clothing manufacturer called Moltex, which was owned by Adriano Goldschmied. After working with the company for two years, he used a loan from his father to buy a 40% holding in the company, which changed its name to Diesel, and marketed jeans under the Diesel brand and many others. bought out Goldschmied's interest in the Diesel brand name in 1985 for US$500,000, becoming the sole owner of the company. Rosso has said that he learned marketing from the US, creativity from Italy, and systems from Germany.

1990s

During the first part of the 1990s, Rosso pioneered Diesel into the fashion world and set the grounds for its establishment in global markets. In 1990, Russ Togs, Inc. received the license to market and distribute Diesel lines in the United States and Mexico. By 1991, Russ Togs was going out of business, and sold Diesel Sportswear to Rosso upon ending the licensing deal. As a result of Russ Togs collapse, the creation of made in the USA Diesel products never came to fruition, and Diesel instead placed its made-in-Italy jeans and clothing in US stores.

In 1991, the company launched its first international marketing effort with the highly successful 'Guides for Successful Living' campaign series. The campaign won a Grand Prix at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, the world's leading awards in advertising, in 1992. In the same year, Diesel also became the title sponsor for the World Superbike racing circuit. Diesel continued to ignore common marketing rules and began to establish itself as a major brand in the global fashion market. This was a result of Rosso's ambition to always break new grounds and his aspiration to work with most creative agencies and photographers around, including David LaChapelle, Terry Richardson, Ellen von Unwerth, Rankin, and Erwin Olaf.

Later in 1995, the company launched one of its most popular yet provocative campaigns ever, featuring two kissing sailors staged at the peace celebration of World War II. Shot by photographer David LaChapelle, it was the first major public advertisement to show a homosexual couple kissing and was published at height of the "Don't ask, Don't tell" debates in the US, which had led the U.S. Government to refuse entry to military service for openly gay, lesbian, or bisexual persons. At the same time, Diesel launched one of the first significant fashion retail websites, which housed images of each of its collections. The first Diesel jeans to be sold online were available in Finland and Sweden starting in 1997. It then opened a virtual store that allowed home delivery for further markets the following year.

In 1999, Diesel opened large flagship stores in New York City, San Francisco, Rome, and London, and began to open other mono-brand stores for Diesel in order to augment its points of sale in department and other multi-brand retails stores. Further flagship stores (also known as "StyleLabs") opened, including stores in Berlin, Barcelona, and Paris. Diesel also produces illustrated catalogs for its retail lines. The company also won the Premio Risultati award for Best Italian Company of the Year from the Bocconi Institute in 1996. In 1998 The Wall Street Journal called Diesel "the label of the moment".

By 2candle at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0

2000s and 2010s

Throughout the 2000s, Rosso increased Diesel's share in the global fashion market, mainly through opening more company owned stores, embarking on a series of brand collaborations, and by expanding on the business of Diesel. Diesel founder Rosso also began purchasing additional fashion companies in 2002, under the parent company Only The Brave, which Diesel was brought under as well. Companies purchased by Only the Brave included Maison Martin Margiela, Viktor & Rolf, Marni, and licensing company Staff International. In 2005 Diesel released the book "Fifty" upon Rosso's fiftieth birthday, an illustrated history of the company, with a print-run of ten thousand.

Diesel's denim's products are produced exclusively in Italy, with many of its products produced by out-sourced factories. Its headquarters are in Breganze, on the former Moto Laverda factory area, and had twelve international subsidiaries as of 2005. As of 2008, the company had five thousand points of sale across eighty countries, with 270 mono-brand Diesel stores. Diesel itself owns 170 of those, with the rest owned by franchisees. Turnover was over €1.3 billion in 2009, and by 2010 the company had over 400 stores. In 2012 Diesel founder Rosso was listed on the Forbes list of billionaires for the first time. In 2015 the company held the exhibition Welcome to Diesel World in Shanghai, which provided an overview of the company's history, in conjunction with its collection debut. Another exhibition was held in Tel Aviv to mark the company's twentieth year in Israel.

In the spring of 2013, Rosso named Nicola Formichetti, the former stylist of Lady Gaga and creative director of Mugler, as Diesel's Artistic Director. The announcement followed days of speculation and was met with positive response across the fashion world and daily news press. In an interview with V magazine following the announcement, Rosso said "I finally met somebody as crazy as I am", and explained that Formichetti's new responsibilities will be overseeing "the total view" of Diesel's brand, including product, communications, marketing and interior design. Formichetti's first project's included launching a groundbreaking crowd-funded advertising campaign with Tumblr. The campaign, titled #Reboot and shot by Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin, featured prominent, young creatives ranging from graffiti artists to film students instead of common models, with varying body shapes, sizes and personal styles.

2020's

Belgian designer Glenn Martens was appointed artistic director of Diesel in October 2020. 2021 direct e-commerce sales for Diesel saw a 34% rise compared to 2019 figures, attributable to Martens work. The Diesel Fall/Winter 2022 Ready-to-Wear fashion show, designed by him and held on 23 February 2022 in Milan, got mostly positive coverage. It was deemed as a "magical and fantastic" show with "big ambitions" and an "out of this world" vibe, while other reviewers appreciated that the "collection’s inspirations spanned decades", although the high-heeled boots proved tricky to walk in as one model was led off the runway by a member of the technical crew after having repeatedly tripped.

Fashion lines

While the most popular Diesel apparel item has been denim wear, the company has expanded to include additional forms of clothing. The company has created leather jackets, women's dresses, and other items. In 1998, Diesel founded an offshoot label called Diesel StyleLab, which produced higher end fashion designs beyond more traditional denim jeans. In the 2000s, the company began to license its brand to other retail manufacturers, in order to create new product categories. These lines included the sunglasses line Diesel Eyewear in partnership with Marcolin, the jewels and watches line Diesel Watches in partnership with Fossil, the fragrance line in partnership with L'Oréal. The production of each line involves supervision from Diesel itself. Diesel has also partnered with Moroso, Seletti, Scavolini, Foscarini, and Berti to create a home furnishings line called Diesel Living, with Bugaboo to create strollers, with AVG to create helmets, with Ducati, and with Fiat to create a limited edition Fiat 500. Diesel also produces limited edition lines of jeans.

By Lumturi1989 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0

As of 2003, according to Women's Wear Daily, Diesel had three distinct fashion lines, "Diesel Style Lab, the most pricey fashion-forward designer label; Diesel, a fashion brand that still focuses heavily on denim, and 55DSL, the board sport-inspired streetwear line that blends fashion and function." Style Lab and 55DSL are now defunct.

From 2008 to 2018, there were two lines: Diesel and Diesel Black Gold. Diesel Black Gold was the luxury ready-to-wear line and was launched in 2008 during the New York Fashion Week. The line elevated Diesel's denim expertise by introducing elements of tailoring. Diesel Black Gold was positioned as a casual alternative to other luxury brands. In 2013 Diesel underwent a re-branding effort, reorganizing both the business structure and marketing methodologies.

As of 2023, Diesel does not have any diffusion lines or sub-brands.

Source: Wikipedia

Diesel Men Polo

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