ADEDOYIN AMOLE
Nestled under the once famous Didi Museum is a boutique that houses Italian, Ermenegildo Zegna, located on Akin Adesola Street, Victoria Island, Lagos. For the corporate, business individuals who are fashion conscious, the desire to look good and trendy has come to fruition at Ermenegildo Zegna, Italy’s finest menswear luxury brand.
Located on the busy Akin Adesola Street Victoria Island, that is now being dubbed Lagos’ London Bond Street, the store is an architectural masterpiece befitting of the brand it houses. It parades the best cuts tailored to perfection by Italian designers. In typical Zegna style, the store offers the full array of Zegna products and services: personalised couture, made-to-measure wear, casual wear, sports apparel and the finest handcrafted shoes, belts, bags, silk ties and other accessories. Each collection is distinctly and perfectly represented in designated corners of the store.
Deriving from the Zegna Global creative workbook, the store was designed by Studio Berreta and implemented by Tope Edu Designs. The design and layout of the store speak exquisite luxury and tells the heritage of this fine luxury brand, through still photos, rich embroidery, and pin-perfect displays.
Opened on December 1, 2013, the store is an absolute embodiment of the Zegna signature: masculine, understated, sophisticated, classy, classic and flawless. It is a harmonious blend of natural colour palettes, sustainable woods, and cut-glass finishing.
Explaining the rationale behind the launch in West Africa through Lagos flagship store, Tope Edu, franchise director, O3X Limited, expressed her joy as the Lagos store is one of the 500 stores of the brand across the world.
Edu noted that the journey of the brand to Nigeria started more than five years ago. It was envisaged to enable Nigerian men to have access to the trendiest of wears and fashion accessories, which the Ermenegildo Zegna brand has perfected across the globe for 100 years and running.
With the store, she said that the stress, time and huge sum people spend in travelling to Italy to get the products were things of the past. The store is on your doorstep and it parades same quality you get in Italy, as Ermenegildo Zegna products are same quality in its 500 stores across the globe.
A symbol of Italian elegance and craftsmanship, Ermenegildo Zegna, recorded €1.26 billion sales revenue in 2015. In 2013, it was the first among renowned luxury fashion houses to open a store in Nigeria in a bid to take advantage of the growing number of super-wealthy individuals in the country.
“This is a big, big sign of hope, Gildo Zegna, chief executive, said in an interview with the Financial Times of London, at a moment when there is not much hope around. It’s a bit like the China dream in the early ’90s or the Russians in the late ’90s or Mexico in the 2000s. We do hope that the first settler there will be blessed.”
Zegna believes an average African consumer spends 50 percent more than the typical shopper. “They are serious buyers,” Zegna said. “We are in a very upper luxury (market). African customers were less like the Chinese, who quickly embraced the company’s sportswear line, and more like the Russians. It’s the men who are the big shoppers. They want the top quality and are very formal. You have to sell to the world, so they need to look like the world traveler.”
In addition to the Lagos store, Zegna has a presence in Cairo, Casablanca, and Johannesburg. The company regards Angola and Mozambique as potential markets.