Spanish design house, Desigual, celebrated its 40th anniversary and has outlined a new marketing approach to target a younger audience as it expands into the Australian market, in partnership with fashion distributor and marketing consultancy O’Rourke Showroom.
Desigual presented its SS25 runway show ‘Reflections’ in its hometown of Barcelona last month to mark the 40-year milestone, paying tribute to the past, present, and future of the brand. The collection revisited the brand’s Mediterranean roots and archives, highlighting the creativity, innovation, and joy that has defined the brand since 1984.
B&T donned our Sunday best and sat down with Balázs Krizsanyik, Desigual’s APAC general manager, to learn more about the fashion house’s entry into the Australian market and its refreshed marketing approach.
The show brought together international celebrities including SS24 campaign star Hari Nef and supermodel Amelia Gray.
O’Rourke Showroom is a distributor of global fashion brands in Australia and New Zealand, delivering integrated sales and marketing strategies for brand management and development. O’Rourke has an extensive network of retail partners, including David Jones, Myer and independent boutiques throughout Australia and New Zealand.
The brand has undergone a complete refresh to capture the essence of the “Desigual girl” and connect with a younger audience.
“Celebrating our 40th anniversary and our recent strategic decision to rejuvenate and reposition the brand, we are now focusing on growth in the Australian and New Zealand markets. Our goal is to ensure localised success, capture the essence of the Desigual contemporary product range, and most importantly, connect with our new target audience, young women in their 20s. We are excited to partner with O’Rourke Showroom and expand our retail presence this year by partnering up with new retailers, making the brand more widely accessible across the country for a generation of the Desigual girl,” Krizsanyik told B&T.
“Desigual has nailed the balance between strategy and design, something I see lacking in 90 per cent of brands I consult for. They’ve kept their unique artsy vibe but made it cooler and more modern. From vibrant prints to contemporary styles, Desigual has transformed from a high school teacher’s brand to a potential new favourite of Gen Z,” said Pia Alvarez, freelance design and collection strategy consultant based in Paris.
To play with its rebrand, Desigual released a t-shirt that says, “I never thought I would wear Desigual,” making light of the brand’s previous image and highlighting just how transformational its rebrand is, by tapping into a new customer base.
The brand changed its logo in 2019, opting for an inverted logo, marking one of its first rebranding moves.
“We started a strategic rebranding and repositioning a few years ago to allow us to connect to a younger audience as part of our broader commitment to stay relevant, whilst offering a fresh, contemporary approach in the current landscape. Our ‘Glow Up’ era has allowed us to do exactly that, a big part being thanks to collaborations with interesting designers as well as brand ambassadors like Hari Nef, our campaign star for SS24. The new Desigual is more contemporary, and fashion-forward than ever, reaching out to a new generation of consumers while being still so true to our roots and core values which have not changed since 1984,” said Krizsanyik.
“We like to call the new Desigual girl expressionists. The majority of them are in their 30s but most importantly they are women with their own sense of style and not simply fashion victims, they are bold – not shying away from saying what is on their minds, they care about others and are eager to be there for the community, for the planet, they are connected to global trends and up-to-date what is happening in the world being it fashion, art, music or culture,” he added.
Desigual’s new direction can also be seen in recent collaborations, notably with Tyler McGillivary. Inspired by the nostalgia of the 90s and 2000s, McGillivary visited Desigual’s archives to draw inspiration from the brand’s irreverent legacy, resulting in a collection filled with references to some of the most iconic vintage pieces and campaign visuals.
“I wanted to bring back the joyful and energetic DNA of Desigual, and expose it to Generation Z who might not yet be familiar with it,” said New York-based designer McGillivary.
Desigual’s sights are set on further global expansion, building its presence in the Australian and New Zealand markets by launching into new retailers to make the brand more widely accessible to shop across the country.
“We’ve fine-tuned and tested our new creative direction in the rest of the world and whilst we have been present in Australia for more than a decade, the time has come to make bold and big decisions regarding brand building and selecting distribution partners,” said Krizsanyik.
“We believe while fashion apparel is the spearhead of the brand, we have a strong commercial opportunity with handbags and backpacks globally surpassing 40 per cent of our revenues and this can serve as a perfect entry product to new consumers. At the same time, delivering the global launches and exclusive collaboration capsules in Australia going forward will definitely bring a lot of excitement”.
Desigual hosted a cocktail party at Icebergs Dining Room and Bar to celebrate its 40th anniversary and SS25 collection which was shown at the event, solidifying its direction to focus on the local AU market. The evening was attended by a mix of fashion editors, models, actress Sarah Ellen, and Desigual’s head of Japan & APAC Balázs Krizsanyik. Guests were welcomed with Icebergs’ famous No.8 cocktail, canapés from the hatted restaurant, and danced to music all night by DJ Yemi Sul.
