Fashion
OTB marks 20 years of Diesel in China with the opening of its new APAC headquarters in Shanghai
Published
October 17, 2025
Only The Brave reaffirms its long-term commitment to China with three initiatives that underscore the importance of the Chinese market for the international fashion and luxury group, which brings together the brands Diesel, Jil Sander, Maison Margiela, Marni, Viktor&Rolf, and the companies Staff International and Brave Kid, and holds a stake in the Amiri brand. In addition, founder Renzo Rosso says he will invest further in China.
The first initiative is the official opening of its new APAC headquarters in Shanghai, a region where OTB now has 900 employees and around 100 stores, spread across China, Hong Kong, and Macao. Attending the inauguration ceremony, alongside the group’s founder, Renzo Rosso, were the Consul General of Italy in Shanghai Tiziana D’Angelo and Shanghai’s Jing’an District authorities.
The new headquarters boasts double the space of its previous address and is located in the Lee Gardens building. Nestled in the heart of the city’s Jing’an District, it overlooks the scenic Suzhou Creek. According to a statement, the location and expansion of the offices reflect the group’s desire to strengthen its roots in China, as well as to offer the team increasingly modern and functional workspaces and to consolidate relationships with local partners.
The second initiative during Renzo Rosso’s visit to China was a talk for students at Donghua University, one of Asia’s most prestigious design and fashion universities, organised under the patronage of the Consulate General of Italy, Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana, Altagamma, the Italian Trade Agency, and the Italian Cultural Institute.
Third initiative: as 2025 marks the 20th anniversary of Diesel’s presence in China, where the brand has built a recognisable and coherent presence, an event was organised at the Fosun Foundation in Shanghai. The highlight of the event was the launch of a capsule collection titled “Diesel China 20th Anniversary”, designed by Creative Director Glenn Martens.
“China is a country with a unique energy; every time I come back here I am fascinated by its pace, creativity and speed,” said Renzo Rosso. “For our group, China is not only a strategic market, but an inexhaustible source of inspiration. Over the past two decades, we have expanded the presence of our brands and built an authentic dialogue with new generations who share the values of our brands. Our philosophy is to collaborate with local communities to merge brand know-how with the local mindset. The opening of the new Shanghai headquarters, meeting with young talent at Donghua University, and the celebrations of Diesel’s 20th anniversary represent a special moment for me and for the OTB Group […] We will continue to invest in China in the future.”
Shortly before the evening event in Shanghai, Rosso told Reuters that these investments in China will be made by his group despite the decline in the local market, and will take the form of a reorganisation of OTB’s retail presence. The entrepreneur revealed that some stores will be closed, but others will be opened in new and better locations.
“I am optimistic. I think that if the Chinese market continues to proceed in this way, it could represent an opportunity, because we will be able to have better spaces at better prices, which wasn’t the case before,” Rosso told Reuters. “My current vision is to invest in the country. I believe in China; it’s so big, so important. We are doing well this year compared to the market,” he added. “Everyone is in decline; we have some growth, so we are quite satisfied.”
Over the years, the Veneto-based group has supported numerous initiatives and collaborations in China that have connected the creativity and values of its brands with designers, artists and local communities. Notable among these are the “Marni Miao” project, which celebrated the elegance and complexity of embroidery by reinterpreting the codes of the Miao minority through a contemporary lens, as well as the various capsule collections that Diesel has created in collaboration with Chinese designers such as Xander Zhou and Pronounce and celebrities such as William Chan and Chris Lee, along with events and music tours with local artists.
In addition, Maison Margiela has brought its experimental vision into dialogue with the country’s contemporary art and culture through new retail formats, pop-ups, installations and initiatives in different cities, while MM6 Maison Margiela has collaborated with designer Chen Peng.
In addition, OTB has long supported the new generation of Chinese talent. Renzo Rosso has in fact served on the jury of the BoF China Prize in 2019 and supported the launch of the Yu Prize competition, providing mentorship and coaching to support and develop the country’s young designers.
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Copyright © 2025 FashionNetwork.com All rights reserved.
Published
December 1, 2025
Modella Capital is fast becoming one of the most acquisitive businesses on the UK high street and the latest retailer to join its portfolio is footwear chain Wynsors World of Shoes.
The company hadn’t made a formal announcement as we published but a spate of Companies House announcements came through about individuals ceasing to be “a person with significant control” of Wynsors’ parent company or becoming newly appointed directors. Yet the biggest clue that came early evening on Monday was the one that said “Appointment of Modella Capital Directors Limited as a director on 29 November 2025”.
There’s no hint of how much it might have paid for the business.
The story had originally been broken by Sky News on Monday morning, which had said the investment firm was targeting a takeover of the privately owned footwear retailer and was in “advanced talks”.
Wynsors trades from around 50 standalone shops across the north of England and Sky had said Modella was “the likeliest buyer” of the business, with expectations of a deal before the end of the year. Monday’s later developments tore that timeline up completely.
Modella was recently in the news as the buyer of Claire’s UK business. It also recently bought the non-travel locations of WH Smith (now renamed TG Jones) and owns Hobbycraft and The Original Factory Shop too. It had earlier hoped to add Poundland to its portfolio but missed out on that one.
Wynsors had been looking to sell for around two months and accountancy firm RSM had been hired explore interest from prospective bidders, Sky News said.
The chain trades from around 50 standalone stores and 40 concessions. It sells brands including Adidas, Skechers, Hush Puppies, Clarks, Nike, Kickers and more. And although its sells footwear for women, men and children, it focuses particularly on school shoes.
Copyright © 2025 FashionNetwork.com All rights reserved.
Published
December 1, 2025
A running specialist is all set to drive growth in Eastpak‘s bags business. VF Corp’s luggage brand, a major player in the backpack market in France and across Europe, has appointed a new global brand vice president. Marie Gras, who has served as vice president for running at the French sporting-goods giant Decathlon for nearly two and a half years, is leaving Hauts-de-France to join VF Corp’s Antwerp offices. From Belgium, the group operates Eastpak as well as Kipling (led by Domitille Parent, who previously headed Eastpak).
For Marie Gras, a first challenge looms with last weekend’s reopening of an Eastpak flagship on London’s Carnaby Street. The store is located at 35 Carnaby Street and spans two floors. The brand opened its first-ever store on the London thoroughfare in 2008, in a 170-square-metre space.
Marie Gras helped implement Decathlon’s recent running strategy, in one of the world’s fastest-growing sports. Through its dedicated running brand, Kiprun, Decathlon has launched a running app and, notably, formed agreements with partners in new territories to develop Kiprun spaces beyond its own Decathlon stores. Previously, the executive spent almost eight years at Adidas, most recently overseeing the brand’s activities and events in Paris, one of the key cities in the brand’s global visibility strategy.
Eastpak is one of the luggage brands owned by the VF Corp group, which is currently streamlining its operations. The group also owns Kipling, to which it has given fresh momentum in recent months, as well as JanSport, focused on the US market. Eastpak, which benefits from numerous collaborations with designers and mass-market licences, such as Diesel and Gremlins, was founded in 1952 under the name Eastern Canvas Products. In France and Western Europe, it holds a key position among lower- and upper-secondary students. However, across the functional backpack category as a whole (excluding hiking backpacks), the French brand Cabaïa has gained market share in recent years and now claims category leadership in France.
For Eastpak, the challenges are therefore to scale up its entire bags and luggage range and to strengthen its competitiveness against emerging European players in various markets, such as Rains, Ucon Acrobatics, Qwstion, Kapten & Son, Tucano, Ferrino, Ecoalf, Lefrik, and Sandqvist.
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The rating agency said the government’s latest fiscal package is broadly in line with projections made when it affirmed the UK at ‘AA-’/Stable in August but said that the path to consolidation is becoming more challenging.
Fitch Ratings has deemed the budget marginally deflationary, sees debt rising above 106 per cent of GDP by 2027.
The agency said the UK budget broadly aligns with its August deficit projections but signals of rising implementation risks due to back-loaded tax measures and tight spending plans.
New taxes total £26 billion (~$34.37 billion) by FY29, while social spending rises further.
Fitch said the budget’s new tax measures represent £26 billion (~$34.37 billion), or 0.7 per cent of GDP, by fiscal 2029 (FY29), with threshold freezes contributing £8 billion (~$10.57 billion). New Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) data show general government net borrowing projections 0.2 percentage points (pp) higher on average in 2026–2028 than in March, before falling 0.2 points in 2029, Fitch Ratings said in a release.
Fiscal data since summer remain broadly in line with Fitch’s forecast for the general government deficit to narrow by 0.6 pp in 2025 to 5.3 per cent of GDP and then to 4.4 per cent in 2027, around 0.7 points slower than the government’s new targets.
The agency highlighted material uncertainty around implementation, particularly given the challenging expenditure consolidation outlined in June’s Spending Review, which the budget largely preserves. Real-terms public-sector current spending growth has been tightened further in FY29 to zero, averaging 1.2 per cent in FY26–FY28 compared with 3.4 per cent in FY24–FY25.
Fitch noted that many tax measures are highly back-loaded, coming into effect closer to mid-2029, the latest possible timing of the next general election. A large portion of the tax plan also consists of numerous smaller measures, making the overall impact less transparent than the broader income tax rise the government signalled before the budget. Options to raise further revenue are politically constrained by 2024 election pledges not to increase personal income tax, VAT or National Insurance.
Still, Fitch said Chancellor Rachel Reeves is demonstrating firmer commitment to the fiscal rule than recent predecessors. Last year’s decision to shorten the rolling forecast horizon from five to three years from 2026 has reduced the scope to delay real fiscal adjustment. Aligning fiscal plans more closely with three-year spending reviews also makes it harder to rely on unrealistic spending cuts to fill fiscal gaps.
Budget headroom has increased from £12 billion to £22 billion, around 0.6 per cent of GDP, but Fitch said this remains limited and constrains efforts to improve policy predictability.
Revenue projections have been reshaped by a £16 billion downgrade in expected tax receipts due to lower OBR productivity assumptions, reducing average GDP growth in 2026–2029 by 0.3 pp to 1.5 per cent. Upward revisions to inflation and wage growth more than offset this decline. The OBR’s updated medium-term GDP growth outlook is now closer to Fitch’s trend estimate of 1.4 per cent, of which total factor productivity contributes only 0.3 points.
Although sustained high nominal gilt yields represent a significant fiscal risk, the UK’s long average debt maturity of 13.7 years helps contain projected debt-interest requirements, which Fitch expects to rise modestly to 7.4 per cent of revenue in 2027 from 7 per cent in 2024.
Fitch projects modest GDP outperformance in the near term compared with its August forecast of 1.2 per cent for 2025, although a weakening labour market poses a small downside risk to its 1.2 per cent projection for 2026. The agency judges the budget as marginally deflationary and expects inflation to fall to 2.4 per cent by end-2026.
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