Revival
The company was rescued by the Tacchella brothers of Italian jeans company Carrera S.p.A., who sold on the company to Japanese jeans group Edwin Co., Ltd for 45bn lire (~US$41m).[14] In January 1996, after a plea bargain, Elio Fiorucci was given a suspended jail sentence of 22 months for inflating the value of invoices to increase the value of the company to Carrera at the expense of his creditors.[15] Luciano Benetton was cleared of similar charges, on the grounds that he had not been involved at an operational level during his time (September 1985 - September 1987) on the board of Fiorucci.[16]
Originally, Edwin planned to launch five stores in key cities like London,[14] but although they signed an initial deal on 4 June 1990 that was ratified that October, Edwin did not gain control of the Fiorucci assets until May 1992.[17] In fact, they would later lose the rights to the Fiorucci name in Canada on the grounds of disuse.[17] However, one of Edwin's first acts was a deal with Coles Myer that would see 68 Fiorucci concessions in stores across Australia.[6] They opened a new store in Piazza San Babila, Milan in early 1993, that included a variety of branded boutiques.[18] It took them longer to get things going in North America, after a 1993 deal with Mary Ann Wheaton of Wheaton International[19] fell through. In 1995 they licensed the rights for eyewear in the US to Swan International Optical, and then opened a US office in September 1997.[20] However, the strategy of their licensee, Stephen Budd, to sell the brand into US department stores didn't work out,[1] so in 1999, they announced a plan to open a New York store once again.[21] The initial plan was to open in time for Christmas 1999, but the store on lower Broadway finally opened its doors in June 2001.[1] Commentators such as Kim Hastreiter were sceptical that it could recapture the buzz of times past, given the increased competition in mass-market clubbing gear from the likes of H&M and The Limited.[1]
Meanwhile, the brand continued to thrive in Europe, and regained some of its former notoriety in 1995 with a poster campaign for its jeans featuring a naked woman's buttocks and pink furry handcuffs, which became instant bestsellers.[6] In 1999, it launched a successful perfume, followed by a second, Fiorucci Loves You, in 2001, and "Miss Fiorucci" makeup in 2003.[6] Edwin have been aggressively expanding the brand throughout Asia, from Seoul to Tokyo and China.[6]
Although Elio Fiorucci retained creative control during the Edwin era, the new owners were protective of the Fiorucci trademarks, and took legal action against H&M in the US when Elio designed H&M's Poolside line. He had also set up a brand of his own called Love Therapy, and designed for Agent Provocateur.
In March 2003, Elio Fiorucci announced that after 36 years, he was closing the doors to his historic shop in Corso Vittorio Emmanuele, Milan. When Fiorucci hit the scene nearly 40 years ago, he blew Italy - and the rest of the world - away with a larger-than-life attitude. He brought in the new and unexpected, pre-dating the surge of today's "lifestyle" stores. Fiorucci mixed clothing with beauty products, vintage items, music and home furnishings. He even used his retail space for artistic performances. Elio, who had become an ethical vegetarian,[22] said the reason he was closing his shop was because he had "fallen out of love" with fashion.
In 2015, the year Elio Fiorucci died, the brand was sold by the Japanese trading house Itochu to Janie Schaffer, an ex-CEO of Victoria's Secret, and her business partner and former husband Stephen. Their plans to relaunch the brand began in early 2017 with pop-up shops in Barneys in New York, and Selfridges and Harrods in London.
