Claudio Marenzi: A Legacy of Technical Elegance

TRANSCRIPT

Claudio Marenzi: You know, it’s a brand of technical elegance. Garments meant to be lived in, not just looked at. He has an Italian identity with an international look.

Dan Rubinstein: Hi, I’m Dan Rubinstein and this is The Grand Tourist. I’ve been a design journalist for more than 20 years and this is my personalized guided tour for the worlds of fashion, art, architecture, food and travel. All the elements of a well-lived life.

As a design person, I’ve always viewed the world of fashion from that point of view. Everything created should have a reason, a material should perform as intended, and chosen carefully, and function should always be triumphant over form. Of the many long-standing luxury brands in the world today, one house in particular stands out as an insider’s favorite that’s just as consistently wearable as it is elegant. Herno. The brand started in 1948 with functional cotton raincoats treated with castor oil left over from the war period and partly inspired by the humid environments around Lake Maggiore where the company was founded. And over time, it’s steadily grown and expanded into a more fully-fledged fashion collection with stores around the globe.

And like all good Italian companies, the leadership has stayed within the family. My guest today is Claudio Marenzi, the son of the founder Giuseppe, who has overseen a remarkable transformation of the brand since his appointment as President in 2007. He’s not only someone who’s looked after his own family business, but he’s been a leader in the world of Italian fashion as well.

He’s been the head of multiple high-profile organizations such as Pitti Immagine and Sistema Moda. I caught up with Mr. Marenzi from his headquarters to discuss how his father groomed him to take over the brand that he grew into a performance-driven empire, how the fashion universe in Italy has evolved since he took over, what his American clients think about the brand and what makes them different, and his hopes for the next generation. 

So, you know, I’d love to start at the beginning. I read that you were born in Arona, which is in the Piedmont region, a little bit west of Milan for those who don’t know. It’s a place with a strong connection to the world of Herno and to your brand. Tell me a little bit about your early life and growing up there.

You know, the growing was like a typical province life, because we are, as you said, in the northbound, to the west of Milan, in a small village in Lesa near Arona. It is a city quite big, but Lesa is like 5,000 people. So really the deep province of Italy.

So, let’s say that the life was, anyway in that area, like that. But on the other side, we are very close to the craftsmanship and business that coexisted in this area. So my early years were about observing, workshop, then the material, people, commercial. So, let’s say that I spent all my summer vacation in the summer working in the company.

What did they make you do?

I started in the cutting room and iron, press, sewing, the operation, generally speaking, logistics. So that was my, let’s say, early life in the company.

Were you good at it? Were you good at steaming and pressing?

I love it. I love it. All the, let’s say, the procedure. And I love even the commercial part. Let’s say that my father has a premium. They always brought me to Pitti. So I’m making my first Pitti in ’78. And for me coming from the lake and going to Pitti, it was like going to New York.

Yeah, it’s a big deal to go to a big fashion show like that.

I even saw the customer that I was sewing with. I recognized them. So, it was incredible for me. So, a really incredible period. Yeah.

Ah, okay. Tell me a little bit about the company. Your father founded it in ’48, in the post-war years. Tell me about how this idea came up. Tell me about what the beginnings of the company were like.

You know, my father taught us more with his life than in words. The family is the company and the company is the family. So it’s really the Italian way. There is almost no difference. So the company shaped my sense of responsibility. And really that was the family and the company together, you know.

My father compared the company, the work, to a sport, especially at the beginning when we were very young. So, it was easy for us to understand about the competition, about the deal. Everything was about a competition. And we trained to have results. So, achieve the goal through deep training. And this in my opinion was very important even for our life.

And what were the first products that your father created back in the early days?

The first producers were the rainwear. The raincoats, everything was about a function.

And I read that he used a certain kind of material or a certain kind of treatment at the time that made them special. Is that true?

Yes, at the time it was quite normal. They used resin oil, just to dash on the cotton. To make the cotton rainproof, we used resin oil. In our area there was quite a lot of this material.

And so when you were a child and growing up in this family where the company and the family are kind of one in the same—and you mentioned it comes from the spirit of competition and from sports and from active things—was it a competitive household? Were you competitive with your brothers? Was there a spirit of competition if you know what I mean?

A lot. 

Okay. Tell me about that.

We were three brothers, three boys. You know, we competed in sports. We competed at school. We competed, say, in every area of life. Of course, when we worked together in the company it was different. We competed together against the market in some way, you know. So we were focused on it.

And so, when did you first join the company officially? Did you start working right away in the company once you ended your studies and things like that?

Yes, I finished my studies. I didn’t even not finish university because I majored in philosophy in Milan. And my father was not so, let’s say, happy about that. So, he said, if you want to read the books, you can even work. And my university had a special course for pattern makers. So, I became a pattern maker, an expert in operation. And after a couple of years, I started working. So, let’s say that after two and a half years, I drop the university and started working. It was ’85.

I made my military service because at the time it was compulsory so I started working officially in ’85.

What was your first job?

My first job was about operations. So I looked for the procedure in the production. And I introduced computerized cutting in the company.

And tell me about the ’80s in Italy, in the mid ’80s or late ’80s we’re talking about here. What was the fashion world like? What was the industry that you were in like back then?

The ’80s was the period when the big brand, the big Italian brand, moved to real fashion, the world of real fashion, they say. And coming from two different sides. From design, so Versace, Armani, Moschino, Ferre. Or, from the accessories. So from Prada, Gucci and whatever. So, they were keen on accessories, but not in garment and manufacturing. So, this was the reason, because they were looking for a company, they have a manufacturer inside, the quality and quantity. So at the end of the ’80s we started working more for other brands than Herno.

And at the time in the ’80s, everything was so positive. Everybody says that really the ’80s in Italy was very nice, very exciting, [inaudible 10:40]. And this was a period where we lived in an incredible atmosphere for the future. Being even, of course, even a fragile experience. Because fashion was more keen on aesthetic and marketing, innovation, much more than manufacturing. So, this was probably a fact that was quite negative. I always focus my idea of fashion more on manufacturing, than only fashion.

And back then in the ’80s, when you were producing clothing for other brands, as you mentioned, did that impact the company? Because you were able to learn from the system and from the world of Milan and Rome, to go beyond the early beginnings of being about raincoats and functionality.

Let’s say that affected the company because the company moved more as a manufacturer than a brand. So the brand later, in the ’90s, in the beginning of the 2000s, became weaker in terms of brand recognition. On the other side, the company improved a lot to understand the balance between the fashion and the manufacturing better.

So for me, especially for me, really for myself, it was very important because I built up my idea of fashion that then later on, from 2005, I put on the market. Meaning all the big designers, Jil Sander, Tom Ford, Marc Jacobs, Louis Vuitton from 1997, they built out my idea of fashion. On the other side, it was my origin from the manufacturing, the technical, the functional. So I put together, and this is my background that I put on the market from 2005.

How do you feel that you have this background of being a company about functionality and design and manufacturing? How do you think today that differentiates you from some of your fellow Italian brands and so on?

You know, what I did from 2005, when I was alone almost, without my brothers, and just having—my father has a [inaudible 14:59] just to guarantee the family. I started to make a balance between the aesthetic and the manufacturing. So, between marketing and the perception of quality. So, the value for money. This was really important for me because I really started sartorial engineering fashion. And because I really understood manufacturing deeply.

So, let’s say that this was my way, at that time it was very innovative. And now let’s say that many brands follow us, meaning the functional and the fashion and the manufacturing is the mainstream of many brands. We started really because we came from manufacturing. It was, at the beginning, my only strength. We were manufactured. So that really makes us what we are, even what we design.

(SPONSOR BREAK)

When you first took over around 2005, and you were alone, right—you were essentially at the head of the company, more or less—what was the vision? What was your dream? What did you want Herno to become?

The dream was, of course, to increase the brand recognition of the brand. The task was how? Because in 2005, if you remember, the market was quite full. Like today, the market seems not to have space. This was even the thoughts of my brother. This is because they didn’t agree with me on this ambition. 

So I started from, you know, thoughts. Our DNA is the raincoats, okay? The raincoats are a functional garment, because you have to save from the rain. So, in some way, we can say that we are a function company, a functional fashion company. So, if you are a functional brand, our task is important to increase the performance of what we are making, the fashion. So, we are a performance company. But if we are a performance company, we can perform even other kinds of items. Coats, double face and down. So I started to put big effort in the R&D, in research and development. We first started in 2008 direct injection of down in the coats. We started in 2010 for the first time making a collection, a fashion collection, with Gore-Tex fabrics. So, kind of hyper performance items for fashion and for urban use. So let’s say that everything was about fashion on one side and function on the other. And in this way, we made our own path through fashion. And little by little, we opened our space.

And in those early days when you were investing in all this new R&D and things like that, was there a product or something that was an early success that you thought, “Ah, OK, this is working. I’m doing the right thing?”

Yeah, many.

What’s your favorite?

My favorite, it was very nice. We have been successful for quite a few years. It was very, it was even funny. We call a zip out. And it was an item that you have the zip, that in some way you can open, without the pulling, but just open like that. Because it’s a special zip that you can open that way without, of course, breaking the zip. And this was very nice. It takes time to achieve the right results.

But, it was very, let’s say, it was a show. You open this jacket on just one side. We did it in 2012. So let’s say that each, not each season, but each year we just moved to these kinds of items.

On the other side, in the last seven years, going direct retail has increased the typology of products. So, we started out as an outdoor jacket brand, let’s say luxury outerwear. But now we are making a global proposal with pants, knit, shirt, dress, whatever—but with a must. Everything must be thought out and industrialized in the company. Everything we are putting on the market is from design studies and prototypes and industrialized in the company. So everything comes from our entire procedure.

So you’re not outsourcing, essentially?

No, we are. Of course, we are outsourcing some of our production, directly controlled by us. But everything is done by direct control.

In the beginning, you said that your brothers didn’t agree with you. What did they want? What was their opinion? What did they disagree with?

The opinion was that the market was packed, no space. So, we were not so unique. And so it would be better to stay as a manufacturer and keep going like that. You know, in some way, they gave up the competitive experience.

You’ve served in many leadership positions and a lot of Italian industrial bodies like Pitti and Sistema Moda Italia. What have you learned from your time working with these groups about manufacturing today? Because you have a very privileged position. You know things and you’ve seen things that you can share. What have you learned from all that time with those groups?

What I’ve seen is shifting manufacturing to quality, traceability and sustainability. Meaning going beyond just the aesthetic to these values that are very important. I even saw that company and quality could not be done by just one player, but it’s very important for all the supply chain.

When you’re dealing with all of these different companies in these groups, what are their challenges to doing this?

The challenge is to put everything together and focus on just one direction, and deal all together with, let’s say, the European Union, and then through all the other countries. Meaning, the rules that are placed now in Europe, are done more for the Northern European countries that are not so keen on manufacturing. So, let’s say that the real manufacturing countries are Italy, for sure, and on the other side, Germany. But the rules of Europe right now are more keen on the commercial. This means that they don’t put value on the manufacturer.

OK, so there’s too much of a focus on commerciality rather than on manufacturing, essentially. 

So, I know that the brand with Herno has acquired some and spun off others and changed. So, what is your vision today for the future? From the beginning, we talked about your original vision in 2005. And so now today in 2025, has your vision changed? I’m sure a lot has shifted and grown. 

Your original vision has come true in a sense.

Yeah, let’s say that the most important task is to keep going like that. No second way, no plan B, go straight down our path. Of course, that means that you have to adapt to the market, but still not make any kind of concession to different ways.

So manufacture, control the manufacturing. Asking ourselves when we make some new items, why we are doing it, not only in terms of aesthetic, but even in terms of functionality. And especially, always giving the best value for money, starting from the manufacturing. So, when we study the product, of course, we study in terms of fashion, so aesthetic, function, but then study a lot about the procedure even, how to do it. To achieve the best price for the best quality. This will be our path that we have to not away from.

So now, looking into the future, is there an avenue that you want to explore? Now that you’ve moved the brand into a new space over these years?

Let’s say that our expansion in the next years should be in retail. Now, the retail for us represents 40% of our turnover. It should be at least 60%, so a majority going for retail. It’s not a question of margin, but a question of showing our product in the right way. And of course, you can do it just in your direct shop. So we have to move to that. Of course, it’s quite an expensive expansion, but as I said before, even doing that, we have to not decrease our duty to R&D. So this is the task for the future, the near future. Balance our investment between the brand recognition through direct retail to the other side, still moving in R&D.

And putting business aside for a moment, I read that you have quite the contemporary art collection.

Yeah.

I heard that you bought your first piece of art when you were 15.

Yes.

Maybe from the summers cutting fabric from your…

You’re right. I mean, with the first pocket money that my father gave to me during the summer, I bought my first piece of art, painting my bedroom doors from a local artist.

You commissioned it.

I commissioned it. They painted my door with a nice subject. I kept the door. When I left my family’s house, I went out with the door. So this was my first… I always loved art, because I always admired the artists that can make, and they can talk with people and have a vision of the future through their hand.

This is something that I don’t have. So, it’s something that I always admired in the other. It started like that. I have a lot of passion, energy about that. Now this energy, of course, is mitigated with discipline. But at the beginning I was really full of energy for art. I organized many events, I met all my generation’s artists, not only from Italy. So it’s becoming, it became, kind of a second job. Let’s say it’s more of a business investment right now. But I always found art to be a kind of view of the future. The very big artist, the very nice artist is the artist that has a view in advance.

(SPONSOR BREAK)

And the company opened its first flagship in the United States in 2017. What has your experience been like with Americans? Is there a difference? You mentioned you went to Japan, and so I’m just wondering, how you think about the American consumer for Herno vs. Italy or Tokyo or something like that?

The American consumer is very keen on quality and very fast. So, everything in terms of engagement is about quality and service. You cannot drop that.

So, the service is really very important. In some ways, the Americans are spoiled about that. You know, let’s say, all the logistics, everything must be on time, must be in the right moment.

We’re used to Amazon, basically.

Yeah, I mean, they are very… So, let’s say that this was a great task for us, but we were quite aware of that because even Japan is like that. Japan, in terms of aesthetic and, I don’t know if we can say peakness of quality, is like Italian. There they are very, very focused on that. But they are even more focused on the service. In my opinion, it’s coming from the American side of them. And so we were quite accustomed to it. And so, when we opened the first shop in the U.S., we were quite aware of that.

So anyway, the Americans are a little bit more classic than Europeans. They move fashion to another kind of fashion. So, they are more royalty in a way.

They’re more loyal to their brands, basically.

Yeah, yeah. But you cannot make something wrong. Because of the loyalty, if you spoil them, then it’s very difficult to make them come back.

So as long as you maintain the level that they expect, they will be loyal to you, essentially.

Yeah, and this we see, especially in the second store that we opened on Madison, where there are many customers that already wear Herno. They say that it’s a kind of Herno area. So in that area, we have many loyal customers. And it’s very, it’s a very good experience. I met many of them when I passed by in New York. It was very useful, because they even gave us advice on products. So it’s a nice, yeah.

What kind of advice did the customer tell you about your product?

In terms of stability, for example. In terms of the weight of the items, because of the season. I remember a discussion, a nice discussion with a customer who advised us, saying you should have more inter-seasonal items. Because in New York, one day is very cold and the other day very warm. So, you cannot just think about the season. So it’s nice. They interacted with the brand. That means the loyalty is quite important.

I mean, that’s an interesting point you bring up because so much of your brand identity is things in coats and raincoats and these performance things. And obviously, nowadays, I mean, it was 80 degrees in New York the other day. When we’re recording this in the middle of September. 

Is global warming becoming an issue? Are people buying as many heavy coats and outerwear? Because I feel like maybe people don’t need it as much as they used to.

Yeah, you are right. We are lighter, our items. And especially, we are making a collection of a lot of trans-seasonal items. Not heavy, but medium-heavy items in the summer, and light items in the winter. More than we are not selling heavier items, we are selling more in a different way. There is not one season for heavy items and one season for light. You should be prepared to sell, all over the season, different kinds of weight.

I wanted to ask you something that has been talked about for a long time, and especially with your work with Pitti and these other groups, this concept of quote unquote, made in Italy that has evolved and changed and has many issues surrounding it. 

So today, now in the post-pandemic moment, especially when there are a lot of issues about free trade and all sorts of things, what does made in Italy mean to you personally?

It’s a big question.

It’s a very big question. First of all, we are making 50% of our items in Italy and 50% in Eastern Europe. OK, we have a company, a factory in Italy. Of course, our headquarter on the lake but there is a second one in Sicily, so in the south, where we have an induction of more or less 800 people. And then we have another company in Moldova. So in Eastern Europe, around 1,000 people. And we divide the manufacturing by the value of the material.

So the most important material, the cashmere, cotton, silk, all kinds of wool or whatever, in Italy. And the man-made material, nylon, polyamide, whatever, in Eastern Europe. Just to balance the value of the manufacturer and the value of the material to achieve, as I said before, the best value for money. About that, in my opinion, there is an answer. Meaning, to do that, we strengthen the extraordinary quality of “made in Italy.”

So, we have to make in Italy the most valuable items. Because it’s not only a question of know-how. It’s a question of passion and love. In Italy, we have that passion. We love to serve other people. We love to make people wow. You know what I mean? “Wow, they are making the best.” This has happened even in food, whatever.

So, we love to make people have a great experience. And this is something that you can feel in Italian manufacturing. When we want to just make items that are made in Italy, we make a mistake.

We have to make in Italy only those items that people stay astonished by in some way. So, we have to focus on the high quality. We have to focus on the best items that we can do. And leave it to another country, the more industrial one. Sometimes it happens that this is not so clear. The brand wants just the “Made in Italy,” and this way we make some mistakes. But they say the industry in Italy for fashion involves more or less 700,000 people and more or less 10,000 companies. This is just for manufacturing. So for us it’s quite a big area. And of course with 700,000 people, some wrong procedure could happen.

Some people are abusing the system, essentially.

They’re abusing the system. Okay, this happens. So it happens, sometimes comes out. And then everybody in the world thinks that this is just the situation. But it’s not like that. It’s just an exception. But really, we should think about making only the most beautiful items. To do that, we cannot make any kind of mistake.

It reminds me of Apple and how they have this Designed in California, you know, made in China, but designed in California or Cupertino, like where they’re from. Is that part of your thinking? Is this really more about the soul of what Made in Italy is rather than a more purely technical vision of it?

That’s a part of the meaning for sure. Before I was talking about fashion, so garments. Of course, there are some other distractions that they can make, the design and the industrialization in Italy, then they have the production in Asia, whatever. And of course, you keep in your company, just the idea. And this is, of course, a part of Made in Italy. 

On the other side, yes, this is a part. The second part is the industrialization and manufacturing. You can make a good product, a very good product, design, study, industrialize in Italy and make it in Asia. But still, when you have to make the right manufacturing with the right material, Italy does better.

As the company specializes in active wear and things that are meant to be used, what trends have you seen in your time in the company that tells us about how we spend our time?

Think about luxury. Many people and myself thought luxury was time. Time is luxury. So, having time for yourself is a nice experience for each of us. So for us, having a nice time means making items that make you feel good in different parts of the life, not only work, not only in the city, but even in private life. So, this is always even about functionality.

You know, now there is a generation of 50, 60 year-old people that don’t have the perception of quality like their father. Meaning, the perception is not anymore just the handmade buttonhole or the handmade jacket, sartorial or whatever. The perception of the quality is even the performance. Because we are the generation that made sports till the ’60s, ’70s, whatever. We are using incredible material for any kind of sport. So, the performance becomes a part of the perception of the quality.

So, this is why I’m so focused on the performance. Because the performance became part of the perception of the quality. This is because we are using our time in a different way. Not only to work, but even to stay with ourselves, maybe in the woods, on the mountain. So we need to be more, let’s say, safe in any case. 

And what’s next for Herno?

The next is to keep going. Like that. And it’s not an assumption. It’s not so easy. Meaning, to keep going like that in a world that is, let’s say, quite unbalanced in some way. And even changing our dimension. Meaning I started almost from 1 million. When I started in 2005, the turnover of Herno was less than 1 million. Now it’s going over 200 million. And to keep going in the same vision is not easy. Because the needs change, the dimensions change, even the mentality. So, the big task is to keep going in the same way, with the same enthusiasm, with the same will to keep going like that.

And have you thought about the next generation that might take over the company one day?

The first generation? Yes, of course. I have two sons. First of all, I just teach them to keep going, the company is not only about metrics, but it’s about value. And all our talking now is about value more than the metrics. But still, it’s very important, not only the passion, but the experience.

Thank you to my guest, Claudio Marenzi as well as to everyone at Herno and NPPR for making this episode happen. The editor of The Grand Tourist is Stan Hall. To keep this going, don’t forget to visit our website and sign up for our newsletter, The Grand Tourist Curator at thegrandtourist.net and follow me on Instagram @danrubinstein, and follow The Grand Tourist on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen and leave us a rating or comment. Every little bit helps. Ciao ciao!

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