PHOTOGRAPHY: POLLY BROWN WRITER: LOU STOPPARDSuccessful sportswear brands are no longer
purveyors of just clothing and equipment
for sports. They are now fashion brands.
And footwear brands. And media publishers.
And high fashion collaborators. They are
lifestyle labels and video-makers and cultural
icons to be name-checked in rap songs. It’s
tough competition out there – and brands
must move with the times to survive.
It’s intriguing, then, that when Italian
sportswear brand Fila was trying to return
to match fitness, floundering after its success
peaked in the 1990s, it looked backwards,
rather than forwards, pouring money into
a museum and archive, the Fondazione
Fila Museum in Biella in northern Italy. But
then Fila was once a brand with imperial
ambition and serious momentum. And it
was intent on being that again.
Biella is an unassuming town in Piedmont.
On a flying visit, you’d miss the fact thatit’s a vital hub for the production of various
luxurious fabrics, such as fine wool and
cashmere. It’s here that the Fila brand was
born in 1911, making yarns and clothing. It’s
had a long history of highs and lows. In the
1960s, the firm ran into financial problems, so
it called on consultant Enrico Frachey, who
become known as ‘Il Dottore’ (the Doctor).
Inspired by his own passion for sports,
and noticing that activities that had once
been the pastime of the elite were being
taken up more broadly, Frachey suggested
Fila move into activewear. By the 1990s,
the brand had acquired cult status, with
the success of trainers such as the FX 100,
which found an audience among cool kids
more interested in fashion and music than
athletics. If Fila apparel had its heritage in
Italy, its footwear found traction in the US,
specifically American pop culture and street
style. Then things got tough. A particularUS sportswear giant was about to begin
a winning streak that left the competition
breathless and bamboozled.
‘The archive was being built while the
brand was in upheaval. Stores were closing.
It was just three years after the acquisition
of the group [by Fila Korea] in 2007 and the
brand was being rebuilt from the ground
up. Maybe some people in the group couldn’t
see the point,’ says the Fondazione Fila
Museum’s vice president Marta Benedetto,
who began work on the project in 2010.
‘The thing with a foundation is that it’s only
a cost,’ she adds. Indeed, the returns on
investment are less tangible than those
that can be felt after opening a new store
or releasing a new capsule collection.
But Fila Korea’s chairman, Gene Yoon,
believed it essential to show ‘the value and
the history’ of the brand. Benedetto and her
colleague Annalisa Zanni, the foundation’s »Italian sportswear giant Fila looks backwards to go forwards
Back
stor y
Clockwise from right,
a high-tech ski suit,
designed in 1993 and
worn by Alberto Tomba;
vacuum-packed Jamball
trainers, 1994; Aqua Time
swimsuit collection, 1985∑ 119
Fashion