Red diversifies into clothing and focuses on wholesale development in Italy

“When my brother Michele and I joined the company about ten years ago, our historic Rede brand was well positioned in a medium-range market, within large-scale distribution. However, we realized that our company had the know-how capable of producing high-end items and we therefore decided to launch the Red brand, with which we could approach a high-level channel”, explains Marazzini. “It wasn’t easy, we had to completely reinvent ourselves, create new departments, especially in the creative area, and build a new clientele from scratch. Today Red has come to represent around 25% of total turnover and has growth rates that lead us to predict that it will reach 50% within two years”.

In addition to an increase in positioning, with Red the company has also pursued a strategy to expand the offer. “With SS22, in addition to the swimwear line that we have already been producing for a few years, we have included a t-shirt proposal, which has had an excellent response from the market”, continues the entrepreneur. “For FW 23-24, we are presenting a collection of jackets and sweatshirts at Pitti Uomo, in which we take up some details of the textures of our socks, which can thus be combined with clothing; we want to focus on a few products, but well made and in which we can express our DNA. This also allows us to adopt a circular approach: for example, the patches on the sweatshirts are made with socks that are not put on the market because they have some defect. For the creation of the garments we rely on Italian production partners”.

Through this strategy of expanding the offer and through new partnerships, Red aims to strengthen its presence in the wholesale clothing channel, which already represents around 60% of turnover, starting from Italy, where the brand produces around 80 % of sales. “We are convinced that high-level distribution in our country can act as a driving force for growth abroad as well, where today we are present in about fifty stores in Spain, England, Germany, Japan, Australia and the USA”. adds Marazzini. “We also continue to invest in our e-commerce, which today still represents a small percentage of sales but is growing a lot”.

At the same time, the company is pursuing collaborations with companies from other sectors: “For some years now, we have been making boxes designed for Christmas gifts that combine our stockings with grappa or gin from Poli Distillerie, a historic company in Bassano del Grappa. For the next winter season, however, we have signed a partnership with the Italian men’s beauty brand Depot and we will create a pack that will contain Red socks and their aftershave; this could allow us to take a first step also in the beauty channel”, anticipates Marazzini.

At Pitti Uomo 103, Red is presenting a collection whose common thread is joie de vivre and which reinterprets past classics taken from its archive of over 1,000 designs, such as maxi chevrons, multicolor checks and Norwegian Christmas motifs. A real explosion of colours, where green is combined with pink and purple with orange, while the brand’s iconic “red 52” is combined with navy blue.

The jacquard designs alternate with silk-screen prints with which the new collection pays homage to good Italian habits, such as that of coffee prepared with a coffee pot. The women’s line, which represents about 20% of Red’s sales, dialogues as always with the men’s line, with the proposals of the collection that increasingly lose this clear distinction, leaving room for personal taste and the possibility of choosing according to one’s taste .

As for the company’s performance, after 2022 closed with an increase of 15/20%, based on the results of the SS 2023 sales campaign, Red expects a similar performance for 2023 as well.