California Apparel News

Italian designer and denim maverick Adriano Goldschmied is leaving his namesake company AG by Adriano Goldschmied, launched three years ago by parent company Koos Manufacturing Inc. in Los Angeles, to go on hiatus and settle down in his native Italy with his family, according to a company spokesman.

Goldschmied joined the 23-year-old full-package supply-chain denim maker—whose clients include Gap Inc., Abercrombie & Fitch Co. and The Limited—in June 2001 and will leave the company by the end of this month. AG by Adriano Goldschmied, which promotes men’s and women’s high-end denim and sportswear at retail price points between $70 and $140, is the denim maker’s first branded label. The line’s denim is produced at the company’s vertical facility near downtown Los Angeles, and the collection’s leather sportswear pieces are produced in Italy. The line is distributed in the United States, Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom and Australia.

With more than 30 years of experience in the denim business, Goldschmied, 62, is an early denim pioneer who helped pave the way for premium denim brands commanding prices in the three-digit range, beginning with Diesel, the company he co-founded in the late 1970s under the Genius Group with partner Renzo Rosso. With retail price points ranging from $129 to $245, Diesel has since grown into a $660 million fashion empire.

Goldschmied has also had design stints at Miss Sixty, Gap, Mauve and Pepe. In the late 1990s, he was a design consultant for the Tencel-based jeanswear line A. Gold E., which earned sales revenues of $60 million in the mid-1980s.

All the while, Goldschmied divided his time between the United States and his home in Asolo, Italy, near Venice.

“[Goldschmied] did a great job designing American brands from his home in Italy and has the ability to do it again if he wants to,” said Michael Press, vice president of Koos Manufacturing. “I’ve been to his home in Italy, and I certainly understand why he’d want to go back. It’s pretty spectacular.”

A Brand—a joint venture with Lucky Brand Dungarees partners Barry Perlman and Gene Montesano—lured Goldschmied to Los Angeles in 1997. A Brand had a short life.

Press said a new team of designers will take over the task of designing AG by Adriano Goldschmied and the recently launched branded denim line Big Star, beginning with the Fall 2005 collection.

“Goldschmied is a fantastic creative director because he is a ver y driven and focused man who has very specific design ideas. He is not someone you replace with one person,” Press explained. “We have a lot of confidence in the design team who will design AG by Adriano Goldschmied— many of them have worked closely with Adriano and have been influenced by his design philosophies.”