MILAN – The Marcona 3 showroom, known for having served as a launchpad for marquee fashion talents including Virgil Abloh at the start of his career with Off-White, is kicking off its next phase under a new owner and chief executive officer.
Last September the showroom business, which operates a 5,380-square-foot space in Milan and a second unit in Paris, was acquired by Novastone Capital Advisors, a Swiss investment firm with interests in European and North American companies across sectors.
The financial entity, an operator-led search fund, focuses on small to medium-sized, often family-owned, enterprises facing succession challenges.
As per its structure, Novastone Capital Advisors partners with experienced, mid-career entrepreneurs with deep industry knowledge to identify, acquire and grow privately held companies, requiring them to invest in the company that the fund is taking over. Former owners also typically remain minority shareholders and equity is offered to existing top management as well.
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“We acquire companies to bring them into the future. My goal here is to create a bridge for Marcona 3 to its next 10 years,” said Paolo Ciarlariello, the new chief executive officer of Marcona 3.
The executive, who boasts a 30-year career in the luxury sector covering top management positions at companies including Luxottica Group and LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, where he served as Tag Heuer’s chief commercial officer, joined Novastone Capital Advisors as principal director in 2022. He spearheaded the Marcona 3 takeover from former owner Piero Tordini, who founded it in 2001, and who maintains a minority interest. Sales director Antonio Longo and business development director Danilo Iaccarino have also invested in the showroom business.
Financial details of the operations were not disclosed.
Ciarlariello said that the fund was interested in the luxury fashion world and Marcona 3 emerged as a good fit “for its track record in discovering and jump-starting new talents.”
To be sure, the showroom has played a pivotal role in launching brands including Marcelo Burlon County of Milan, GCDS, The Attico, Represent, and Axel Arigato, among others.
“Our business model tackles different operations, from consultancy on product development to logistics and communication, in addition to distribution. We are a 360-degree agency,” he said.
“The showroom identifies successful talents and brands in the early stages of their development and the goal is to help them become successful and eventually find investors and supporters when they are still underdeveloped but show great potential,” he said.
To this end, Marcona 3 has also already invested in one of the brands it carries — JG1, a gorpcore-tinged outerwear brand by Californian, but Rome-based, Justin Gall.
Other brands in Marcona 3’s distribution portfolio include Batakovic, a Belgrade-based womenswear brand established by former model Ivana Batakovic; the origami-like and pop-tinged outerwear label Raxxy by William Shen, the math guru and winner of the National Olympiad Mathematics Competition in China; photographer Giampaolo Sgura’s fashion project Cultura; Reternity, the German streetwear brand founded in 2018 by Lauren Riedel and Tom Schmidt; the Italian evening- and partywear brand Amen, as well as leather specialist Salvatore Santoro, among others.
“I’d like for Marcona 3 to become the point of reference not just for new fashion designers but design in general. The world is full of creativity and creative people, but many young talents have a hard time finding the right window and platform,” Ciarlariello said. “If someone’s doing something beautiful — whether it’s a dress, a chair, a watch — I’d like to give the global audience a chance to discover it here, at Marcona 3,” he said.
“I think there are so many emerging brands, very creative but there are too few platforms like ours. It’s increasingly burdensome for new labels to go solo, with the high costs and risks of doing that,” he said.
The executive underscored how 2024 was a complex year characterized by retailers reluctant to bet on new names. “With the fall 2025 season we’re seeing a renewed impulse to discover new brands. Retailers’ budgets are still tight across the board, not just on research brands, but there is definitely a desire for newness,” he said.
“For up-and-coming brands, the stakes are high, one needs the right product, the right pricing and most importantly a story to tell. We have also become very selective on brands. The number of new projects we are reviewing is incredible and it’s become harder to choose what to take to market,” the executive said.
Marcona 3 currently generates 60 percent of its revenues in Italy, but Ciarlariello aims for international markets to represent 50 percent of sales since these are oftentimes the real fuel for emerging brands’ growth.
The executive declined to provide figures but said he is “committed to organic and healthy, sustainable growth, leveraging brands that have potential in the long term.”
