Chinese luxury management company Redstone enters joint venture with 100-year-old Italian couture house Curiel

Chinese magnates have been investing overseas in everything from castles to wineries, and now there's one more thing to add to that list: haute couture.

After its success in the ready-to-wear market, Chinese luxury management company Redstone has formed a joint venture with Curiel, an Italian fashion house that has been around for more than a century.

Redstone will be a major stakeholder and provide managerial and financial support to help the brand grow on a global scale. Raffaella Curiel and her daughter, Gigliola, the third and fourth generations of the couture house, will remain at the creative helm.

The Chinese company will invest 5 million to 10 million euros ($5.7 million to $11.3 million) annually over the next few years to grow the business, Zhao Yizheng, its founder and president, says in Milan. He did not disclose further financial details.

"It's as if I found a huge diamond on a mountain," he says of the deal. "Now it's my job to cut it, polish it and make it valuable."

Zhao's confidence is not misplaced. Over the course of a decade, Redstone has transformed Giada, a nascent Italian designer label, into a global brand that sits across from Dior and Hermes in Milan's central shopping district.

However, compared with Giada, Zhao says nurturing Curiel will be different because it comes with 100 years of heritage.

Curiel began with Ortensia Curiel, who opened an atelier in Trieste in the late 18th century. Her niece, Gigliola, who succeeded her, went on to open an atelier in Milan in 1945 and sign deals with New York's Bergdorf & Goodman and Harrods of London. And after her death in 1969, her daughter, Raffaella, opened a boutique in Milan and blazed a new trail fusing art and fashion.

Gigliola Curiel, who helps run the brand today and is named after her grandmother, joined the family business and created her own pret-a-porter line.

When asked why she chose Redstone for the joint venture, Raffaella Curiel, 73, says: "Zhao is somebody who will take Curiel into the future. I wouldn't have sold to anybody else.

"He knows what he's dealing with. He knows fashion and appreciates our work. I'm very confident in him. I rely on him like a brother."

Curiel will hold an exhibition during Milan Fashion Week in September to showcase the history and future of the brand with dresses, sketches and a new collection. It also plans to open a showroom covering 500 square meters in central Milan this year, with outlets to follow in Shanghai and New York.

Zhao says he will maintain the haute couture essence of the brand while giving it a modern makeover. "It's time for haute couture, as everything is getting individualized these days. With haute couture, it's usually just one piece," he says.

He also plans to develop ready-to-wear lines that will highlight evening dresses and a more accessible line of little black dresses inspired by Curiel's archive sketches.

Zhao started out as a journalist and photographer with the foreign affairs office of his native Sichuan province. He later transferred to the Shenzhen Shekou Industrial Zone in Guangdong province, which was the first in China to be opened to the outside world, bringing in Western brands.

He founded Redstone in 1995, introducing to China brands like Salvatore Ferragamo, Yves Saint Laurent and Valentino.

Since it started collaborating with Italian brand Giada in 2005, Redstone has opened 55 stores for Giada in 28 Chinese cities. The company became a major shareholder of Giada in 2011 as part of plans to expand the label globally.

Zhao, who was first introduced to Raffaella Curiel through a mutual friend in Milan, says he had been pushing for the deal as he believes in its heritage and creativity. While Giada offers more daily wear, he says Curiel complements it by catering to glamorous evening wear.

He adds that Redstone will continue to seek new opportunities with original Italian brands in the affordable-luxury sector.

"There are many Italian brands with a good history, but many of them are family businesses that are not open to outsiders," he says. "The Italian market is very small, so they don't have a good stage.

"Our model is to cooperate with small and medium-sized companies and develop them in China, where the market is bigger and where we have the expertise. After we succeed in China, we will develop them throughout the world."

sunyuanqing@chinadaily.com.cn