Versace and Luxottica agreement is flying high

In 2003, the first year of the partnership between Versace and Luxottica for the production and distribution of eyewear, billings amounted to 90 million euros (40 million euros for the previous year).

'Last year our wholly-owned boutiques gave excellent sales results for our eyewear', fashion house president Santo Versace commented to Affari & Finanza. 'The growth in sales averaged 25%. The best performance was in the American market where our 16 monobrands made +80%. The French boutiques also gave interesting results with +16%, but not more than the Italian market where our sixteen outlets achieved a 20% increase.'

Satisfaction with the partnership is shared by Luxottica; the Versace and Prada licenses (the expectation for the latter brand is 120 million euros by end July) have fully covered the loss of Armani (which was equal to around 200 million euros).

'We understand each other perfectly in the strategic vision for brand development' Versace commented further. 'The Versace brand is distributed through specialist channels, chains and independent sunglasses stores. Versus has an even more massive and wider distribution.'