In designer fashion, France may be the center of creativity and America may be the heart of commerce, but Italy remains the capital of industry—the place where bags and shoes and clothes are made. Perhaps that’s why the market is home to so many globally recognized Italian fashion brands. Versace, Gucci, Armani, and Prada are not necessarily the biggest businesses, but they are by far among the most recognizable. And there are obviously plenty of lesser names that punch above their weight when it comes to exposure: Salvatore Ferragamo and Missoni, Etro and Roberto Cavalli, etcetera.

Of course, renown doesn’t equate to success. Over the years, as the large conglomerate-owned brands have moved further upstream to capture value, it’s become harder for many of the independent Italian labels to prosper. While the big groups have focused on direct-to-consumer sales, opening stores, and improving their online shopping experiences, many of the Italian brands have remained reliant on showrooms and wholesale, even as these channels continue to shrink in size.

Perhaps no organization has suffered more during this transformation than Aeffe, the 40-something-year-old fashion group that has owned various well-known names over the years, including Narciso Rodriguez and Jean Paul Gaultier. (Okay, I’m being hyperbolic, but it hasn’t been easy.) Founded in the early ’80s by Alberta Ferretti and her brother, Aeffe’s cornerstone has long been Moschino, Franco Moschino’s irony-pilled fashion brand that it bought in 1999 when there were strategic groups being formed in the country by everyone from the Bertellis (who picked up Helmut Lang and Jil Sander to run with Prada) to the Pinaults (who famously brokered the deal to buy Gucci).

Over the years, as Aeffe has sold off many of its other key interests, including Jean Paul Gaultier and Narciso Rodriguez, its financial challenges mounted and the company increasingly relied on Moschino. Last year, former Burberry and Salvatore Ferragamo exec Marco Gobbetti joined the board, triggering a series of changes, including the elimination of about 200 jobs. Then, in early June, less than a month after Moschino disclosed to shareholders that it was insolvent, Aeffe named Riccardo Bagolin as C.E.O.

And now Oxy Capital, a Lisbon-based P.E. firm that specializes in restructurings, wants to pay off Aeffe’s debts in exchange for controlling ownership of its assets, including Moschino—a quid pro quo that would leave Aeffe as a shell of itself and move all the brands to Oxy. The binding offer was expected in early June, though the company has yet to communicate anything further to shareholders.

It’s no coincidence that Bagolin, an operations guy whose title at textile company Imprima was chief transformation officer, is moving quickly. On Friday, Moschino creative director Adrian Appiolaza left the business, I’m told. His replacement will, in all likelihood, be Loris Messina and Simone Rizzo, the founders of Sunnei, whose contract is set to be signed this week. (A representative for Moschino declined to comment. Appiolaza did not respond to my messages, nor did Rizzo.)

The switch makes sense on many levels. Last September, Messina and Rizzo announced their departure from the brand they founded with performance art: a staged auction created in collaboration with Christie’s. (The line, owned by Budapest-based Vanguards, which has backing from Hungary’s state owned import-export bank, has continued without them.) Messina and Rizzo proved, in their decade in business, that they had a global sensibility with commercial appeal, and a sense of humor—core to the Moschino proposition.

Appiolaza, who joined from Loewe in late 2023, never managed to gain traction. Some of that was on him: A gifted designer with an incredible understanding of fashion history (he’s a collector and rents his archive), Appiolaza nevertheless failed to communicate the irony on which Moschino was founded. Since its birth in 1983, Moschino’s whole shtick has been lampooning the clichés of the fashion industry. Jeremy Scott, Moschino’s creative director from 2013 to 2023, gave the joke an American top note, overseeing collaborations with Barbie and McDonald’s along the way. Appiolaza, his successor, never made us laugh. Perhaps it was the trickiness of the brand; perhaps he is one of those designers who is better utilized behind the scenes. (He could, theoretically, end up working for Jonathan Anderson again.)

Any sort of relaunch won’t be easy, even with a clean slate and promising talent. Through the Scott years, Moschino managed a business north of $250 million in annual sales, but the death of wholesale has made business a whole lot harder. In the first half of 2025, the last time Aeffe reported financial results, Moschino’s sales were down 30 percent. And given the company’s debt, Oxy or some other restructuring artist will almost surely be required on the next leg of the journey. (Suppliers have complained of slow payments or no payments at all.)

Hopefully it all works out. It’s unknown whether Messina and Rizzo, aided by a new C.E.O. and the specter of new funding, will fare better than the previous regime. But at least they understand the assignment.

Interesting. Human Made, the company led by Kenzo creative director Nigo, which I.P.O.ed in Japan last year and made a lot of people a lot of money, has acquired Undercover, the acclaimed fashion brand designed by Jun Takahashi. [Vogue Business]

The rise of Knicks benchwarmer Tyler Kolek shows that you really just have to be cute. To quote: “I ain’t get dressed, I got Dries.” [The People Gallery on Instagram]

Becky Malinsky shows everyone how to wear a scarf and it’s helpful. [5 Things You Should Buy]

The Lyas watch party is headed to Marseille, Saint-Loubès, Bordeaux, and Lyon, with more French cities to be announced. [Instagram]

Palisades Village reopens August 1. When is Rick Caruso coming on Fashion People? [WWD]

Bruno Sialelli, the former Lanvin designer who then went to work for his former boss Phoebe Philo at her namesake brand, is supposedly headed to Balenciaga. [WWD]

If you want to read a nice homage to David Hockney’s sense of fashion, this is the one! [N.Y. Times]

“The tragedy of greed is that it slowly closes people up,” writes Dries Van Noten. “It standardizes desire, tells us what to admire before we have had the chance to discover anything for ourselves.” [Cultured]

There was a Loro Piana regatta and Jeremy Strong wore a mustache. [Inbox]

Are you going to read Audrey Millet’s new Bernard Arnault biography? [Libération]

There’s a twist to the Isaac Mizrahi x Target reboot: The designer has been named Target’s first creative director at large. I guess we’ll find out what that means over time. As we reported last month, this partnership—a redux of Target’s early aughts collaboration with the designer, which redefined what we expected at big-box retailers—was months in the making. Mizrahi’s return is new C.E.O. Michael Fiddelke’s most ostentatious attempt to restore Target’s fashion authority after apparel and accessories sales dropped 5 percent last year. Whether anyone under 45 will care remains to be seen. But he does have good taste. [Target]

Until tomorrow,
Lauren

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