Vionnet owner Goga Ashkenazi says seeks investors to take fashion label to next level

By

Astrid Wendlandt

Published
Apr 7, 2017

French fashion brand Vionnet is looking for external investors to help develop its retail network and branch out into perfume and eyewear, its Kazakh-Russian owner and artistic director Goga Ashkenazi has said.

Vionnet, which Ashkenazi bought in 2012 from Italian fashion veteran and former Valentino boss Matteo Marzotto, now generates in excess of five million euros in annual revenue and has more than 100 points of sale.

“I am looking for partners because I want to take Vionnet to the next level,” Ashkenazi told FashionNetwork after her speech at the Conde Nast International luxury conference in Oman. “We are now known among a certain group of people but now we want the masses to know about it.”

Ashkenazi estimated the brand needed an investment in order of several tens of million of euros. “The ideal investor would be one with a solid strategic plan and good existing retail potential,” she said.

The label was founded in 1912 by Madeleine Vionnet who became known as the “Queen of the bias cut" and popularized elegant Grecian-style dresses.

Famous for its fluid asymmetric dresses, Vionnet was relaunched in 2009 by a group of Italian investors led by former Valentino chief Matteo Marzotto after laying relatively dormant for decades.

Vionnet opened a shop in Paris in 2015 and now Ashkenazi has said she wishes to open a boutique in New York and Tokyo and get into perfume and eyewear to heighten the brand’s profile.

The French label, which now employs 50, is designed by a team in Milan and its leather goods and outfits are produced in Italy.

Ashkenazi said Vionnet, which sells dresses ranging from $1,000 to $12,000 and $1,500-handbags, had suffered from lower luxury spending by Russian customers and the closing down of US department stores.

She said she had not appointed financial advisers to assist her in her search for potential partners.