Bugatti created a buzz during the Milan Fashion's Week launching its new Lifestyle Collection under the headline of "Art, Forme, Technique." The renowned Academy of Fine Arts, the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, in Milan set the stage for Bugatti’s launch event which hosted 750 international guests and the Bugatti Brand Lifestyle Team including Franca Sozzani (editor-in-chief of Vogue Italia), Jonathan Newhouse (Chairman & Chief Executive Condé Nast international), Jean Alesi, Lapo Elkann, Daniele Cavalli, Teresa Missoni, James Goldstein, Hofit Golan and many others.
For the launch in Milan, Oscar-winning actor and producer Adrien Brody - special guest of the blue carpet evening - was wearing an Ettore Bugatti Signature tailor-made suit from the new collection.
above: actor Adrien Brody in front of a Bugatti Type 57 Atalante
above: actor Adrien Brody wears an Ettore Bugatti Signature Tailor Made Suit from the new collection
The Bugatti Lifestyle Collection represents the first authentic expression of luxury lifestyle in an automotive brand and includes two lines; the Ettore Bugatti Monogram Line (The EB Collection) and the Extreme Performance Line. In addition to these two lines there will be a Tailor Made / Bespoke programme, which will be available exclusively to Bugatti customers. The collection will concentrate on clothing and accessories in its starting phase to be complemented by design ‘objets’ at a later stage (The $100,000 Desvall Shisha - or Hookah pipe- is part of this collection).
The Desvall Bugatti Branded Shisha (Hookah pipe) is made of Bugatti Blue Carbon Fiber and is stamped with the Ettore Bugatti's initials like the other new items in the EB Monogram line. The Desvall Bugatti Shisha is priced at $100,000 USD (like the other Desvall Luxury Hookahs)
Massimiliano Ferrari, Managing Director of Bugatti International and in charge of Brand Lifestyle says of the new Lifestyle Collection “It builds on the brand’s deep-rooted heritage and the remarkable vision of its founder. The brand today is a combination of its Italian roots in art and creativity, French passion for luxury and German engineering. The same winning alchemy will now be extended to include accessories, clothing and design articles.”
Bugatti will start in its major markets with exclusive single-brand boutiques, flagship stores and shop-in-shops in the finest department stores, all centered around a striking new retail concept. The retail project also involves prestigious partners, including premium brands in the luxury sector such as Parmigiani Fleurier Swiss watches and Lalique.
The Ettore Bugatti Monogram Line (aka The EB Collection):
The EB Collection was created to express Ettore Bugatti’s self-confident personality and way of living as well as the heritage of his iconic creations in terms of design codes and materials.
The EB pieces impress with their clean, sartorial lines and intensely sophisticated textiles. The largely Italian creative team worked with passion and great craftsmanship and managed to distill Bugatti’s main design cues and transfer them into fashion design: jacket linings and the lower outlines of collars echo the form of Bugatti’s car radiator grills. They took inspiration from historic Bugatti car models, such as the Royale or the Atlantic with its distinctive Center Line, and created dynamic forms expressed as a stripe on the back of cashmere knitwear and inside shirt collars.
Symbols of the brand such as the famous Dancing Elephant, drawn by Ettore’s younger brother and world-class sculptor Rembrandt, make their return in the form of brooches to be flaunted or worn below the collar, as a perfect accessory for the self-confident personality.
The Extreme Performance Line
The Extreme Performance line bears the Bugatti logo, the so-called Macaron, and adds a stunning and extreme range to the world of leisure wear, featuring exclusive technical and high performing fabrics, stretch materials with graphics and reflective tape. The nine layers of the tinted, exposed carbon fibre body, another strength of Bugatti engineering, are a key element in the design of these fashion pieces, together with the aerodynamic lines and cutting-edge materials used in modern Bugatti cars. This line talks about Bugatti’s expertise in using innovative materials, developing advanced technologies, power and excellence.
Each piece of this line is limited to 431 units, commemorating the land speed record time achieved by the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport in 2010 and thus making it the world’s fastest production sports car.
Both the EB and the Extreme Performance lines are very distinctive in their individual characters and yet complementary in bringing together the brand’s dual spirit of performance and elegance.
All three collections bear the distinctive “Fabriqué en Italie” logo and are strictly “Limited Edition”. They were designed to meet the taste of a highly sophisticated personality, who loves luxury and performance and is a leader in his field. Customers can choose from a selection of suits, outerwear and accessories, enhanced by a lavish tie collection and a series of bags with unique characteristics, their shapes drawn from the design of the customers’ cars and translated into the line of the garments.
The blue color, which is the brand’s signature code, is a key feature of this first collection.
Although the collection launches mainly as a men’s collection, the designers created one piece for women: a very exclusive blue crocodile skin bag (shown below), the shape of it inspired by the unique horseshoe of the Bugatti’s front grille, another characteristic symbol of both classic and modern Bugatti cars.
A video of the launch in Milan:
The company is opening two mono-brand stores in Hong Kong and Beijing next January, with a target of 35 mono-brand stores within 5 years, most of them in franchising. The showroom and headquarters of Bugatti Lifestyle company will be inaugurated in Milan, in October this year, in a spacious location in the Sant’Ambrogio area of the city.
images and information courtesy of Bugatti