Marni launches online store

Marni is set to open its first online store this autumn. It is collaborating with e-tailer Yoox to realize this goal. The two companies have been working together for a number of years, as Yoox sells Marni on its site. According to terms of the new agreement, Marni will have its own website, marni.com. "We feel it is time to reach new customers," Marni chief executive Gianni Castiglioni told WWD. "This is the future, to me." His decision was inspired by his daughter Carolina, who shops online regularly. Keeping the business in the family (Castiglioni is married to Marni designer Consuelo Castiglioni), Carolina will be in charge of the web store. It will be created by Yoox to resemble Marni stores in look and feel, with the clothing hanging from architectural sculptures in the middle of brick-and-mortar stores. The online store will debut in August or September with items from the fall 2006 collection. Yoox will ship purchases to Europe and the US, and might eventually add an online store for Japan. Castiglioni hopes the online store will eventually do as much business as Marni's bigger stores in Paris and Milan, as much as $10 million a year. "But we have to test it first," he said. Meanwhile, Yoox and Marni have entered into the agreement as partners, sharing the costs and the profits. It is Yoox's first such deal to operate a freestanding site for a fashion label, although the high-fashion concept store - which has call centres in Tokyo and Canada and distribution centres in Europe, the US and Japan - plans to announce a similar agreement by year's end.