MILAN – Former Gucci CEO Marco Bizzarri has come on as an informal advisor to Margherita Missoni’s Maccapani brand after his family made a minority investment in the fledgling womenswear line.
Bizzarri’s shares, a “small percentage” according to the businessman, are a family investment in his daughter Federica’s name. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Margherita Maccapani Missoni, previously creative director of her family’s M Missoni diffusion line, founded Maccapani in July 2023. The brand focuses on fuss-free jersey pieces manufactured in Italy. The signature Easy Pant, featuring wide legs and elastic waistbands, retails from €450 ($501). “It has the comfort of a sweatpant but can be worn to a gala,” Maccapani Missoni said.
Another bestseller is “The Hood,” a €450 wrapped vest with a dramatic hood (think Dune’s Bene Gesserit meets Diane von Furstenberg).
Maccapani Missoni “is a great creative and business mind,” Bizzarri said.
After decades at the helm of luxury brands such as Gucci, Bottega Veneta and Stella McCartney, Bizzarri has turned to investing in fashion ventures including Italy’s Elisabetta Franchi via his holding company Nessifashion, as well as making smaller family investments like the Maccapani stake.
Bizzarri’s investment is a vote of confidence for Maccapani’s brand, of which he agreed to be the “star investor” as long as she “promised to involve other people in the fashion business,” said Maccapani Missoni. Maccapani Missoni remains the brand’s majority owner among a total of 12 investors.
Maccapani’s early stockists include Nordstrom in the US and Brown’s in London. The brand is targeting €5 million in revenue within the next 2-3 years, by continuing to add wholesale accounts with an “exclusive, artisanal” approach, and focusing on expanding its DTC business online and through ephemeral activations. Twelve pop-ups and trunk shows are on the schedule for next year in Europe and the US.
Maccapani Missoni founded the brand as her family scales back its involvement in the iconic Italian knitwear brand that bears their name since selling a large stake to Italian fund FSI in 2018.
The designer has sought to distance the project from Missoni and gain credibility as a standalone brand. But her family’s influence remains central to Maccapani’s style philosophy.
Missoni, founded in 1953 by Maccapani Missoni’s grandparents, Ottavio and Rosita Missoni, created knitwear that was comfortable yet elegant enough to be worn to the theatre or a party. Her grandparents succeeded in addressing a practical desire without sacrificing style. “A point of view is not enough,” said Maccapani Missoni, “you have to address a need.”
Post-pandemic, she wanted to provide women with everyday clothes that were feminine and graceful, yet comfortable and versatile. “We’ve always borrowed from mens- and sportswear, so I thought about responding to the same needs while putting women at the centre of the narrative,” Maccapani Missoni said.
She said her target clients are women in their 30s and 40s who are busy running from work to their families and social lives. “I want my women to be bold, not demure.”
At a presentation in Milan Thursday, the brand showed its fourth collection with a spaced-out happening, filling a house with non-professional models including a DJ, writer and a food stylist. The women lounged around in a college flat-share style installation (albeit mostly aged over 30) colouring, reading and playing music while wearing pieces from the brand.
The Milan event also saw the launch of a collaboration with eBay. Many of the shoes and bags worn by models were vintage pieces sourced through the site, and will now be resold on Maccapani’s storefront.
The cross-pollination between the young brand and secondhand shopping aims to generate traffic for both partners, introducing Maccapani’s style philosophy to new customers while providing a fashion-approved sheen for the online auctioneer.
EBay is looking to make in-roads in the fashion world as the market for secondhand luxuries online lifts competitors like Vestiaire Collective and The RealReal.
The “Maccafinds” storefront will feature items Maccapani Missoni has curated from other eBay sellers, as well as some of her personal items.
Currently, all Maccapani clothes are produced in Italy, though Maccapani Missoni is open to exploring production in Portugal, Turkey, and other places that may offer “the best quality for price, under fair conditions” as she seeks to balance the brand’s Italian identity with preserving an accessible price point.
“Not many brands that identify as Italian are in our price range,” she said.
