Benetton Perfume

The founders of the Benetton group, Luciano and Giuliana Benetton were the 2 eldest children of a humble Italian car and bicycle rental dealer. From the early age of 5, Giuliana had a love of knitting. In her early teens she worked during the day in a tiny knitting business producing sombre and scratchy woollen sweaters, yet at night using a borrowed knitting machine, she made her own brightly coloured designs. The legend has it that following the sudden death of his father when he was just 14, Luciano, left school to work in a clothes store in order to support his family. It was here that he realised that people wished for colour in their lives, and in their clothing, and realizing his sister’s talent struck upon an idea giving birth to the Benetton success story. After selling their bicycle and accordion to buy a second hand knitting machine, they began to market a small collection of sweaters to local stores in the area of Veneto. Their designs received a positive response and they invited their 2 brothers to join them.

In the early 1960s, the "Brothers of the Rainbow" invested about $2,000 to buy another second-hand hosiery knitting machine, which Luciano converted to make sweaters and jersey materials, and to build a small factory in Ponzano, a few miles from Treviso. Then in 1965, the Benetton Company was formed as a partnership, called Maglificio di Ponzano Veneto dei Fratelli Benetton, with Luciano as chairman, Giuliana, chief designer, brother Giberto in charge of administration and younger brother Carlo running production.

To attract attention and interest to their sweaters, Luciano decided to sell directly to the customer, rather than to retail outlets stocking competitor’s lines. This formed the basis for Benetton retail outlets which sell only the Benetton line. The first of these was opened in Belluno, in the Italian Alps in 1968.

In 1966, the French designer Lison Bonfils came to advise the Benettons, and continued to work for them for 10 years. Their success was such that Luciano bought and restored the Villa Minelli, which became the company’s head office, and he opened his first factory.

In 1969, the company opened its first shop in Paris. The style, the colours and the targeted clientele (young and not particularly well-off) were three factors working in their favour when they set up shop in Paris. Luciano realised that if they could make it in the competitive and sophisticated Paris market, they could make it anywhere.

In 1972, Luciano introduced a technique he had studied in England, whereby knitting is done in off-white yarn, only dying the wool at the last minute, thus keeping up with ever changing fashion trends and cutting manufacturing time.

In 1978 Benetton became a limited liability company. Sales, which included T-shirts and denim jeans, reached $78 million, 98% of which came from the domestic market. With 1,000 stores in Italy alone, Benetton realized that the home market was saturated, and launched a major export campaign. Benetton targeted the rest of Europe and made plans to enter U.S. and Japanese markets. In 1979 the first store was opened in North America. By 1981, Benetton, operating under the name Invep S.p.A., had become the world leader in the field of knitwear, generating three times the sales volume of the next largest manufacturer. By 1982, with 1,900 shops in Europe (1,165 of which were in Italy), Benetton was opening stores at the rate of one each working day.

After conferring the cosmetics branch of the company to Leslie Grunberg in 1986, Benetton launched their first perfume 'Colors' in 1988. The following year, the men’s version of “Colors” was launched in Europe. Later, in 1993, a new Women's perfume was launched: "Tribu" (to be pronounced Italian style : tribou), commercialised in the US, in Europe and in the Middle east, and then in Asia.

Benetton's “United Colours” global advertising campaign succeeded in generating a mix of praise and criticism and, ultimately, a fair amount of free publicity since about 1989. This campaign originated when and Benetton's art director, photographer Oliverio Toscani, was given carte blanche by the Benetton management. The ads, which were initially product-oriented campaigns on themes of multinational and multiracial harmony, eventually focused on institutional-oriented campaigns that featured documentaries on AIDS, sexuality, the environment, interracial relationships, and the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Many of the ads became the subject of controversy and were withdrawn or banned throughout the world. However, the United Colours of Benetton ad campaign, which hinged on racial diversity, won Toscani the UNESCO Grand Prix award.

Benetton came once again under criticism when they considered using RFID tracking chips on their garments to monitor inventory. A boycott site alleges the tracking chips "can be read from a distance and used to monitor the people wearing them." Consumer privacy issues were raised and the plan was shelved.

PETA launched a boycott campaign against Benetton for buying wool from Australian wool growers who practiced mulesing (the surgical removal of strips of wool-bearing wrinkle skin from around the tail of a sheep) on young sheep. Benetton has since agreed to buy ethical, nonmulesed wool and has further urged the Australian wool industry to adopt the PETA and Australian Wool Growers Association agreement to end mulesing.

Benetton remains one of the world's largest and most well-known clothing empires, operating more than 5,000 stores in 120 countries.