Federico Marchetti Reappointed to Giorgio Armani’s Board
STRONGER BOND: Giorgio Armani is further sealing the longtime collaboration between his namesake fashion company and Federico Marchetti.
Marking Armani’s 88th birthday on Monday, Marchetti sent his wishes to the designer with a post on his Instagram handle adding that he was “very honored to be reappointed for another three adventurous years” as a member of Armani’s board.
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Marchetti, who founded Yoox and spearheaded the merger with Net-a porter, becoming its chairman and chief executive officer, first joined Giorgio Armani SpA as an independent, non-executive director of the board in July 2020 and as the first non-family member.
Armani was one of the first designers in Italy to embrace online retailing, launching an Emporio Armani online flagship store with Yoox Group in 2007 in the U.S., followed in 2008 by the European Union and Japan in 2009. In 2011, the designer revealed he would also launch an armani.com store with Yoox, offering collections from Giorgio Armani, Armani Collezioni, Armani Jr., Armani Jeans, EA7 and Emporio Armani.
In 2009, Armani also joined Yoox in sponsoring students for a new one-year master’s degree in e-fashion program at the Politecnico di Milano’s business school MIP. The scholarship covered tuition fees and included a work experience opportunity with the Emporio Armani online store project team, powered by Yoox.
The following year, an Emporio Armani online store was launched in China, becoming the first Western fashion brand to open an official e-commerce site in the country, also enabled by Yoox, and banking on the growing importance of the Chinese online market. In addition to Emporio collections for men and for women, the store carried the EA7 sports line, a selection of the Armani Jeans collections, accessories, watches, eyewear and jewelry.
Last year, Marchetti exited the Yoox Net-a-porter Group and was appointed chair of the fashion task force as part of the Sustainable Markets Initiative that the Prince of Wales launched during the World Economic Forum at Davos in 2020. The Armani Group is part of the SMI task force.
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