The Diesel Story - For Successful Living

According to the Italian brands website, Diesel began in 1978 by Renzo Rosso with the ‘intention of creating the world’s most innovative denim’. The name originated from diesel being a good “alternative energy” amidst a world oil crisis. Therefore, providing the brand with the symbolism of alternative denim. You can determine that the brands story or identity is shown through their slogan ‘For Successful Living’ that first launched in 1991. Appealing to be a brand of difference that also represents reliability. The first flagship stores opened in New York, Rome, and London in 1996. Since then, Renzo Rosso expanded his portfolio of brands, purchasing additional fashion companies managed under the holding company Only The Brave in 2002 (Casagrande,2018). Fragrances were also released in a signed partnership with L’Oréal in 2007, named ‘Fuel for Life’ and ‘Only The Brave’, expanding their luxury growth into the affordable product market in the beauty communities.

3.2 Brand Identity

As stated by Batat (2019) “a luxury brand is attractive because of its know-how, its history, and its image, consumers who are not satisfied by their experiences can suddenly quit it” so why did Diesel fall from its symbolism of luxury jeans maker into the bracket of reachable high end?

In an interview by GQ’s Turner, the Creative Director Glenn Martens from Belgium admitted that when he joined the brand in October 2020, his colleagues all “had a different perception on the brand and what it should be” explaining why the brand may have lost its brand recognition in the last decade.

3.2.1 90s Aesthetic

Recently, Diesel has regained consciousness in the public eye due to its Spring/Summer 2023 show. The brand was rewarded with ‘The hottest Logo of the Year’ with Diesel entering Lysts hottest brand of the year (Hypebeast, 2022).

Diesel has always had a unique and fun atmospheric, well known for its innovative denim designs and its creative and out-the-box advertisements. The brand was a major symbolism of 90s culture.

The ‘Be Stupid Philosophy’ 2010 ad campaign encouraging consumers to “be stupid” displaying photography grade style images showing models interacting in unusual and ‘stupid’ activities, encapsulates the simplicity of 90s garments and grungy care-free attitudes. It could be argued that this campaign may have been too early for its time as post-pandemic was the space in which 90s style garments began to see a resurgence. However, this consistency of brand representation of its heritage and the values that made it so popular in the first place, may be what the brand needed to secure its place in the Gen Z consumer’s eye when they recollect on what encapsulated the true symbolism of the 90s.

Diesel’s most recent campaign ‘DieselXDiesel’ (2021) which shows imagery of models having their smiles warped to express the spirit of the decades that encapsulates [the] heritage #ForSuccessfullLiving in extra-joyful expressions of surreal imagery (Diesel,2021) adds to the wacky and artful emotions being re-explored by today’s consumers. The campaign developed a capsule collection and vintage archive including distressed denim, Americana workwear and acid washes, appealing to the wants and needs of the Gen Z consumer. With 90s trends recently taking control, who else could Diesel, the heritage Italian denim brand spanning 40 years, collaborate with to truly celebrate the enduring aesthetics of denim across the decades…but itself (Dazed,2021).

Diesel has been in a turnaround phase (Fernandez, 2020) since 2014 whilst Rosso worked on his brand portfolio, creating the OTB Group. Diesel returned to top-line growth in 2019, generating $1 billion, later hiring two chief executives a year later in 2017, one being former Balmain CEO Massimo Piombini (Fernandez, 2020). Piombini who had worked for one of Diesel’s competitors, Gucci, joined Diesel because it was one of the first global brands that made an impression on him as a young man in Italy, feeling that it has the history and narrative needed to draw in today’s customers (Fernandez, 2020). Not only does this illustrate how strong Diesel’s brand identity is, it proves that the brand can keep its ideal of appealing as a luxury jeans maker due to its consistency of storytelling not only the quality of the items #ForSuccessfulLiving but also their heritage of success in the 90s.

Images Derived from Fontsinuse.com