Rossignol Group has great global expansion plans. It has recently signed an agreement with leading Chinese investment firm IDG Capital to acquire 20% of the group to support its expansion in China and Asia in sight of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games.
In addition, at the June 2018 edition of Pitti Uomo Rossignol Apparel is launching a new s/s 2019 athleisure collection focused on themes that aim at widening the French skiwear and sportswear brand’s scope. The new collection includes two main lines: Urban Mobility, designed by Damir Doma and inspired by the e-mountain bike world, and Mountain Mobility, an outdoor sport chic collection designed by the brand’s own team, for summer mountain sport activities.
The Urban Mobility collection offers 60 athleisure pieces designed by Doma, whose handwriting is often infused with mixed inspiration including art and design, but also sport-chic and streetwear influences. “Rossignol is a very authentic brand, with a clear and appealing DNA and an impressive history, though it is also very innovative,” says the Croatian-born designer based in France. “In designing this collection, while taking inspiration from the brand’s past, I focused on ‘urban’ and ‘mobility’ themes–two keywords that keep coming back in my design language, as functionality and performance are part of a natural evolution happening in fashion today,” he explains, confirming how he believes that sportswear and especially performance are great sources of inspiration for designers today, while outdoor brands are elevating their collections by injecting creativity. “Thanks to such reciprocal exchange the best of both worlds meets.”
Rossignol has often involved different designers for capsules and collections during the last seasons though it seems it won’t be forever says Alessandro Locatelli, CEO, Rossignol Apparel. “We are following a strategy through which we devise new elements that can help us building a bridge between the brand’s heritage and a contemporary vision for its future development–especially when it comes to products aimed to be worn in urban contexts. For this reason we have been focusing on ‘tactical’ collaborations that respect and are coherent with the brand’s DNA though add new content and help us projecting ourselves in the urban segment. Though this doesn’t mean we will offer designer collaborations constantly. In the future we could also explore new formats.”
Rossignol Apparel’s five-year development plan started in 2015 and will continue its path by focusing on various new initiatives, mostly direct-to-consumer ones. The brand will open new monobrand stores in Europe and it will further expand in DACH, Scandinavian and Eastern European countries. It aims to increase its presence also in the US where it widened its wholesale presence through agreements with important department stores including Barneys (in Beverly Hills, Chicago, Boston and in New York on Madison Ave. and Downtown), Nordstrom and The Webster, and where it aims to open its first US store by fiscal year 2018-19.
Rossignol Apparel aims to reach €50 million in sales by end 2020, even if its goals are more ambitious especially after the recent agreement through which IDG Capital investment firm acquired 20% of Rossignol Group.
The winter sports market in China should reach 100 billion yuan (€13.7 billion) in sales by 2025. The equipment segment alone would represent a 16 billion yuan (€2.1 billion) business for the same period. Introduced in 1995 in China, skiing is registering exponential development, particularly since the announcement of the 2022 Olympic Winter Games in Beijing, which has initiated several expansion and improvement projects of existing ski facilities and the construction of three Olympic villages planned for 2022. Asia and China represent a considerable opportunity for the Rossignol Group willing to speed up its worldwide growth.
Read also:
