Emanuel Ungaro

founded by

Emanuel Ungaro

belongs to

Asim Abdullah, Global Asset Capital

about

Today, Ungaro has a very flourishing atelier as well as branches all over the world, and his annual turnover is approx. $ 700 million.

In 1996, Ferragamo took over financial control of the Emanuel Ungaro house.

Emanuel Ungaro has continued to design couture for his house, but the Spring 2002 was his last for ready-to-wear. He has passed the torch to a young designer named Gianbattista Valli (born 1967). Valli has worked for Roberto Capucci, Fendi and Krizia before joining Ungaro in 1997. He has been trained by Emanuel Ungaro to take over the design of the house. However, Ungaro has stressed in several interviews that he has no intention of retiring from design of couture. He is still brimming with creative ideas.

At the end of October 2004, Giambattista Valli announced that he would be leaving the house of Ungaro and starting up his own label.

The house of Ungaro announced that the new ready-to-wear designer would be Vincent Darre. Vincent was born in France in 1961 and has worked with Prada, Chloe and Fendi. Since 2002 he was chief designer at Moschino.

The house of Ungaro was owned by the Italian house of Salvatore Ferragamo. However in November 2005, Ferragamo sold Ungaro to a USA California-based venture capitalist Asim Abdullah who made his fortune in computer software and e-commerce. The sale includes garments, mens and womens fragrances and accessories.

After the announcement, Emanuel Ungaro announced his retirement from designing. He has not been actively involved with the designing for the last six months apparently. Plans for the designer at present there, Vincent Darre, have not been discussed.

Since early 2007, Franck Boclet is the Artistic Director for the men's collections.

In September 2009, Estrella Archs, Spanish-born talent is appointed as Chief Designer for the women's ready-to-wear collections. Her first runway show took place on October 4th, 2009. Linday Lohan was appointed as her Artistic Advisor. They worked together using their combined taletnes, instincts and intuition to define and promote the Ungaro brand.