Remembering Consuelo Castiglioni's time at Marni Birth of a cult brand

Tomorrow night, after years and years of Milan presentations, Marni will make its debut on the New York catwalks - an overseas escapade that for Francesco Risso is meant to signify another opening to the world, as well as a new chapter in the brand's history. On the threshold of this new era, however, it is good not to forget why Marni became the cult brand it is now, before mohair sweaters, before fur-covered mules and before pierced loafers. Indeed, the brand was the birth of one of the most incredible designers of her generation, a self-taught creative director who through a mixture of aesthetic sensibilities and technical innovations is still counted among the ranks of fashion pioneers along with Miuccia Prada, Rei Kawakubo and Phoebe Philo. The name of this designer is Consuelo Castiglioni, and it was thanks to her and the unique imprint she managed to give to her collections that Marni became a phenomenon for the women of her time, a brand that told an original and above all intellectual femininity, nourished by artistic suggestions and vital in the exuberance of its famous prints. Precisely the prints, together with the cuts and the work on materials, became the three "signatures" of Consuelo Castiglioni's Marni - this is its story.

In 2012, Renzo Rosso's OTB group announced that it had acquired a majority stake in the brand whose sales were around 130 million euros. «Our competitors are Céline, Balenciaga, Miu Miu - all brands that belong to large luxury groups with more financial possibilities than us to deal with an increasingly complex global market. To strengthen ourselves, we needed a partner», Gianni Castiglioni explained. Rosso's group was, like Marni, a family-run business, the two families knew each other, and most importantly, neither was listed on the stock market, so they did not have to be pressured by the financial world. Consuelo herself, a designer who works intuitively, in a way that is also antithetical to the most obvious and commercial market logic assured that the brand would maintain its identity - not the less everyone recognized that the parternship with OTB's platform was necessary to make Marni sit at the table of international big brands. The coexistence of the two families also marked a gradual departure of Consuelo from her creature sanctioned, in 2015 with the complete acquisition of the brand by OTB (at the beginning it owned 60 percent) which was followed, in 2016, by the announcement of Consuelo Castiglioni's farewell: «The time has now come to dedicate myself to my private life». The SS17 collection was her last, and after her, Francesco Risso arrived to lead the brand to new heights. But the memory of Consuelo Castiglioni, her proverbial reluctance and such an interesting mind never left.