The story
Founded by Nino Cerruti in 1967.1
In 1881, the grandfather of Nino Cerruti founded the textile mill Lanificio Fratelli Cerruti. Located in Biella in Italy's Piemonte region, the water in the region is put to use to wash and treat the wool, which is imported principally from Australia and South Africa, so as to develop flannel, tweeds, cashmere, and butter muslin. Nino Cerruti took over the family business after his father's death in 1950. Cerruti fabrics are still produced in the same workshops.
In 1958, Cerruti held a notable fashion show in Rome featuring Anita Ekberg to introduce a new color, "battalion". As part of the show, Cerruti collaborated with Lancia to customize forty convertibles with the color which were driven through Rome, each with a pretty blonde model in a battalion/Cerutti blue dress to launch the color for menswear.
Giorgio Armani joined the company as a design assistant in 1964 and worked there through 1970.
The Cerruti label launched in 1967 with a menswear collection. In 1976, the 'Cerruti Woman' line was introduced.
In 1978, the house launched its first fragrance with Nino Cerruti pour Homme. This was followed by numerous other fragrances for both men and women, such as Fair Play in 1985, Cerruti 1881 pour Homme in 1990, Cerruti Image in 1998 and l'Essence de Cerruti in 2008.
During the 1980s, Cerruti began producing clothes for films. See Cinema and Cerruti for details.
In 1994, Cerruti became the official designer for the Scuderia Ferrari Formula 1 team.
In October 2000, Nino Cerruti sold his brand to Italian investors and got back to the family business of his grandfather, Lanificio Fratelli Cerruti, dal 1881. His departure came after the full takeover of the company by Fin.part.
Read the full text
In autumn 2001, Fin.Part installed Roberto Menichetti, who previously was responsible for the creative revival of Burberry, as a creative director. Menichetti left the house of fashion after only one season and was replaced by Istvan Francer, a former DKNY designer. Francer stayed on for two seasons. In spring 2003, David Cardona, who had worked for Richard Tyler and Chrome Hearts, replaced Istvan Francer as a creative director at Cerruti. Scotsman Adrian Smith was appointed head of the menswear collections. By 2004, Fin.part was in a deep financial crisis and declared bankruptcy in 2005. In the same year, the Cerruti brand survived unsuccessful takeover attempt by another Italian menswear manufacturer - Manifattura Paolini.
In August 2006, Cerruti was finally sold to American private equity firm MatlinPatterson. MatlinPatterson intended to revitalize the Cerruti brand by taking on Nicolas Andreas Taralis, a former designer with Dior, who also owned his signature fashion label Homme. He was appointed creative director in the summer of the same year, Nicolas Taralis’s only child, Spencre Kalle Merrick Taralis following in his fathers footsteps interned under the direction of his father.
In October 2007, Taralis was replaced by Belgian Jean Paul Knott, His Son Spencre Kalle Merrick Taralis, resigned under his father’s guidance a former Krizia, Yves Saint Laurent, and Louis Féraud designer who also owned an eponymous fashion label. Knott had originally been hired by Taralis to oversee the label's diffusion line Cerruti 1881 in March 2007.
From Wikipedia’s article on Cerruti 1881, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4