VERSACE TO ENTER SKIN CARE MARKET
Byline: Jackie Cooperman
Milan — Call it couture skin care.
In an exclusive interview this week with WWD, Ferdinando Silva Coronel, managing director of Giver Profumi, Versace’s beauty division, confirmed plans to roll out a treatment line by next fall.
“This is part of our renovating the Versace beauty brand,” said Coronel, who arrived at Giver last year and spent 2000 remodeling packaging and developing new products. “We’re looking to marry ourselves with the best points of sale.”
While Coronel cautioned that he was still working out the details of distribution and packaging, the line will likely launch in Italy, England and the U.S. first, perhaps as early as September, and then roll out to France. In Italy, Coronel said, he expected the skin care line to roll out to 300 doors; in the U.S., he is aiming for 30 points of sale.
While he declined to get specific about exact ingredients, the collection of 12 stockkeeping units, produced in Japan, is aimed at women aged 30 and older, with active ingredients that calm and hydrate, Coronel said. The line includes gel and creme-based cleansers, tonics, eye products, and body and face moisturizers. And the price reflects Coronel’s push to bring the beauty division in line with Versace’s high-end luxury fashion: a basic product will cost about $150, he said.
Early packaging mock-ups are pearlized, opaque white bottles with gold caps and Versace’s trademark Greek post and lintel design.
Versace seems to be trying to get consumers ready for its foray into skin care with its summer 2001 line, which includes a new product, Lights All Over Sun Glow, a tinted moisturizer billed as an after-sun lotion and available in two shades.
Versace is currently in about 600 Italian perfumeries with its cosmetics line, and 1200 with its fragrances. By the end of 2001, Coronel said, he aimed to have the makeup in 100 points of sale in the U.S., and in 800 in France and Italy.