Bally reorganises, opens new offices in Milan
Bally is turning over a new leaf. The Swiss luxury footwear manufacturer was bought last February from German group JAB Luxury by Chinese textile giant Shandong Ruyi, also the owner of the SMCP group, Aquascutum and Invista (Lycra). The new owners have not fully engaged with Bally yet, though the label, still run by the same senior management team, with Frédéric de Narp as CEO, is busy reorganising.
Bally has recently inaugurated new offices in Milan, featuring an imposing showroom extending over more than 800 m2 at 42 Viale Piave, next to the Diana Majestic grand hotel.
The 2,400 m2 premises on four floors were formerly a theatre, then a cinema which closed down in 1989, and were previously the venue of Gucci's catwalk shows. The building has been renovated by local architecture studio Storage Associati, maintaining its original Belle Époque structure, notably featuring nine-metre-high ceilings.
Last year, Bally closed down its London headquarters and relocated the business between Milan and Switzerland, more precisely in Caslano, near Lugano, where the label's commercial offices are based and where Bally operates a factory producing men's formal shoes. The new Milanese offices are instead home to the design, merchandising, visual merchandising and communication departments.
After the departure of Creative Director Pablo Coppola in January 2017, Bally restructured its style office, creating an internal team of fifteen designers and focusing on leather accessories and footwear, its core expertise. Bally's sport shoe range has also been broadened, as the label's style has now become much sportier.
The ready-to-wear range has instead been much reduced, and now consists of ten men's looks each season, and the same for women, compared to respectively 25 and 50 in the past.
Bally is currently available at 376 multibrand clients and via 318 monobrand stores, of which 46 are franchises and 116 are located in airports.
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