Beginnings Diesel founder
Renzo Rosso began stitching jeans on a sewing machine at the age of fifteen. He used his mother's sewing machine to produce low-riding, bell bottomed jeans, which he would wear himself and sell to his friends for 3,500 lire a piece. He later attended an industrial textile manufacturing high school in
Padua. In 1976, Rosso began working for a clothing manufacturer called Moltex, which was owned by
Adriano Goldschmied. After working with the company for two years, he used a loan from his father to buy a 40% holding in the company, which changed its name to Diesel, and marketed
jeans under the Diesel brand and many others. Rosso bought out Goldschmied's interest in the Diesel brand name in 1985 for US$500,000, becoming the sole owner of the company.
1990s During the first part of the 1990s, Rosso pioneered Diesel into the fashion world and set the grounds for its establishment in global markets. In 1990, Russ Togs, Inc. received the license to market and distribute Diesel lines in the United States and Mexico. By 1991, Russ Togs was going out of business, and sold Diesel Sportswear to Rosso upon ending the licensing deal. As a result of Russ Togs collapse, the creation of made in the USA Diesel products never came to fruition, and Diesel instead placed its made-in-Italy jeans and clothing in US stores.
Pierre Winther’s Artistic Collaboration with Diesel Jeans In 1993, Diesel hired Pierre Winther to redefine its visual identity and brand image. Collaborating with Diesel's headquarters and the Stockholm-based agency Paradiset, Winther created the new groundbreaking "Successful Living" campaigns. His work featured complex, staged scenarios, such as a dramatic car crash and a surreal church event, which broke the mold of traditional advertising. These provocative and visually arresting images created a global sensation. Consumers eagerly collected the campaign's posters and materials, elevating Diesel's brand image and solidifying its position as one of the leading denim brands worldwide. Winther's photograph famous Car Crash 1993 and House of love 1994 stands as one of the most iconic and recognized images in advertising history. The image, part of Diesel's revolutionary campaigns, pushed the boundaries of fashion marketing with its bold storytelling and striking visuals. It gained further acclaim when featured in an exhibition at Fotografiska Museum in Stockholm, which ran from November 18, 2016, to February 12, 2017. The exhibition highlighted controversial and influential Diesel advertising images, celebrating the brand's ability to challenge societal norms through unconventional and provocative visuals. Pierre Winther stated, “I created a world providing profound social messages that offered ethical, political, and even philosophical discourse in a strong, colorful, Fellini-like world. I depicted these themes in a more contemporary way that, to this day, provokes both a grimace and a grin.” Winther's collaboration marked a quantum leap for Diesel, cementing its reputation as a bold, innovative force in the global fashion industry. In 1991, the company launched its first international marketing effort with the highly successful 'Guides for Successful Living' campaign series. The campaign won a Grand Prix at the
Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, the world's leading awards in advertising, in 1992. In the same year, Diesel also became the title sponsor for the
World Superbike racing circuit. Diesel continued to ignore common marketing rules and began to establish itself as a major brand in the global fashion market. This was a result of Rosso's ambition to always break new grounds and his aspiration to work with most creative agencies and photographers around, including
Pierre Winther,
David LaChapelle,
Terry Richardson,
Ellen von Unwerth,
Rankin, and
Erwin Olaf. Later, in 1995, the company launched one of its most popular yet provocative campaigns ever, featuring two kissing sailors staged at the peace celebration of World War II. Shot by photographer
David LaChapelle, it was the first major public advertisement to show a homosexual couple kissing ,
Poland In 1999, Diesel opened large flagship stores in
New York City,
San Francisco,
Rome, and
London, and began to open other mono-brand stores for Diesel in order to augment its points of sale in department and other multi-brand retails stores. Further flagship stores (also known as "StyleLabs") opened, including stores in
Berlin,
Barcelona, and
Paris. Diesel also produces illustrated catalogs for its retail lines. In 1998,
The Wall Street Journal called Diesel "the label of the moment".
2000s and 2010s Throughout the 2000s, Rosso increased Diesel's share in the global fashion market, mainly through opening more company owned stores, and by expanding on the business of Diesel. Diesel founder Rosso also began purchasing additional fashion companies in 2002, under the parent company
Only The Brave (OTB), which Diesel was brought under as well. Companies purchased by Only the Brave included
Maison Martin Margiela,
Viktor & Rolf,
Marni, and licensing company Staff International. In 2005, Diesel released the book "Fifty" upon Rosso's fiftieth birthday, an illustrated history of the company, with a print-run of ten thousand. Diesel's headquarters are in
Breganze, on the former Moto
Laverda factory area, and had twelve international subsidiaries as of 2005. As of 2008, the company had five thousand points of sale across eighty countries, with 270 mono-brand Diesel stores. Diesel itself owns 170 of those, with the rest owned by franchisees. Turnover was over €1.3 billion in 2009, In 2015, the company held the exhibition Welcome to Diesel World in Shanghai, which provided an overview of the company's history, in conjunction with its collection debut. Another exhibition was held in
Tel Aviv to mark the company's twentieth year in Israel. In the spring of 2013, Rosso named
Nicola Formichetti, the former stylist of
Lady Gaga and creative director of Mugler, as Diesel's Artistic Director. The announcement followed days of speculation and was met with positive response across the fashion world and daily news press. In an interview with
V magazine following the announcement, Rosso said "I finally met somebody as crazy as I am", and explained that Formichetti's new responsibilities will be overseeing "the total view" of Diesel's brand, including product, communications, marketing and interior design. Formichetti's first project's included launching a groundbreaking crowd-funded advertising campaign with
Tumblr. The campaign, titled #Reboot and shot by
Inez van Lamsweerde and
Vinoodh Matadin, featured prominent, young creatives ranging from graffiti artists to film students instead of common models, with varying body shapes, sizes and personal styles. Diesel USA filed for
Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in March 2019, and announced it would close some of its brick-and-mortar stores. Its parent company, Diesel SpA, was not part of the bankruptcy filing.
2020's Belgian designer Glenn Martens was appointed artistic director of Diesel in October 2020. The Diesel Fall/Winter 2022 Ready-to-Wear fashion show, designed by him and held on 23 February 2022 in
Milan, got mostly positive coverage. It was deemed as a "magical and fantastic" show with "big ambitions" and an "out of this world" vibe, while other reviewers appreciated that the "collection’s inspirations spanned decades", although the high-heeled
boots proved tricky to walk in, as one model was led off the runway by a member of the technical crew after having repeatedly tripped. ==Collaborations & partnerships==