United colors of Benetton: a story in colors
The story of Benetton begins in Ponzano Veneto in the Treviso province in 1965 with a family project of Luciano, Carlo, Gilberto and Giuliana Benetton. The company soon specializes in knitwear, the first shop is opened in the same year in Belluno. The fame of the brand is due to a very simple but genius idea being very innovative especially in those years: wool sweaters only came in the traditional colors and quality wool had really high prices, Benetton’s revolution was to introduce sweaters with an accessible cost but more than that these sweater came in 36 different colors, which ranges from neutral hues to the more vivid ones. The credit goes to Giuliana, she worked in ship that manufactured shirts and she was the first to create a yellow jumper as a gift to her brother Luciano.
Thanks to this innovation and the introduction of a dyeing technique for garments made of unbleached wool, the company starts a fast and chip production. Benetton begins to expand pretty fast all over Italy through a chain of shops in franchising: it is in fact the structure of the company that allows the brand to grow at international level. The brand’s strength is innovation so it integrates order management, warehouse and distribution perfectly. In 1984 tit is the first company to have an automatic warehouse with a sorting system based on electromagnetic fields which led to doubling the distribution capacity. The more the brand expands there most the investments of the Benetton group transcend fashion. In 1989 the company went public and from then on many are the fields in which it invested: for example, in sports with Formula 1, infrastructure and transports and food service.
In 1971, designed by Franco Giacometti and Giulio Cittato, comes to be the “folpetto” logo which mean little octopus in Venetian dialect, representing a specific fabric weave and which today is the symbol of the brand along with the be slogan “United Colors of Benetton”. From a style perspective,
The Benetton jumpers become fashionable thanks to the appealing colors and the price especially for young people.
The turning point comes with the collaboration with the photographer Oliviero Toscani which begins in 1982. It was him who pitched the claim “United Colors of Benetton”: the logo in a green background which to this days features on the label of Benetton items was created later on by art director Bruno Stutter. The photographer combined almost right from the start this slogan with provocative campaign that hacks high social impact; the sentence has in fact a double meaning, other than to the explicit reference to the vivid colors of Benetton, there is that of promoting the positive aspects of cultural diversity. In the 90s the Benetton campaigns led to many scandals, dealing with very sensitive topics to fight racism and discrimination. Oliviero Toscani was among the first to use mixed race or same sex couples for his photo shoots; also he chose to deal with taboo topics such as HIV and death sentence in his campaigns.
Benetton’s signature style is to be on trend whilst being easy and accessible. The brand has focused on maintaining the features of the made in Italy quality making it accessible to everyone; it reinterprets classic pieces and it is a go to brand for knitwear staple in your wardrobe. Today, thanks to the collaboration with new designers and young personalities from show business, the Benetton looks are closer to streetwear that is on trend at the moment.
Cover Image: azione