Desigual
It's not the same
Origin
In 1983, at the age of 20, Thomas Meyer, a Swiss native living in Barcelona, looked towards a future where people would be able to dress in a fun and different way. He started to experiment, and his first item of clothing was a jean jacket made up of bits of old, worn jeans. By 1984 the jacket was a huge success, and being based in Spain, he chose the name “Desigual” for the company, which means unequal in Spanish. This was to represent how the company set out to be different from all the other clothing brands out there. The name was paired with the company’s slogan, “it’s not the same”. Desigual’s first store was opened in Ibiza, an island off the East coast of Spain.
Clothes
Diffusion
From 1993-1995, Desigual began to export to France and Portugal, and they decided that they needed to establish a network of stores. They fulfilled this need in 1996, when they opened stores in Salou, Lloret de Mar and Platja d’Aro, three tourist resorts in the Barcelona area. In 1998 they opened a store in the Triangle, the most popular shopping center in Barcelona. In 2002, Desigual opened its first store outside of Barcelona, in Valladolid. They opened up 24 new stores in 2005, and in 2006 they opened a store in Singapore, their first store outside of Spain. This was soon to be one of many stores outside of Spain, with a store in London in 2007 and one in New York in 2009. Their clothes also started to be sold in over 500 multi-brand stores across the U.S. Just recently, in 2012, they opened stores in Japan and China to reach the Asian market.
Analysis of History
Desigual started out as a few hand-made jackets sewn by one innovative guy, and once it became a company it still stayed local for a while. It got more popular and diffused to other places in Spain, but never expected to be a very big company, considering that they had few staff members, and all the clothes were made by hand. Finally they opened their first store outside of Spain, in Singapore. It was a huge success, and they decided that they would find even more success with stores in places around the globe. Even with this widespread success, Desigual makes sure to not forget its origins, and it keeps the original values that were set when the company was first made.