LONDON — Taller Marmo, a Milan-based inclusive partywear brand “reaching out to the 20-year-old in Riyadh as well as the 60-year-old in Los Angeles,” on Wednesday launched its own e-commerce just in time for the holiday season.
Feting the launch in London, cofounders Riccardo Audisio and Yago Goicoechea threw a festive dinner at the boutique hotel The Twenty Two in Mayfair.
The brand is particularly popular in the Gulf region, and in London, where many wealthy Arabs reside. Caftans generate some 60 percent of the business. Earlier this year, Taller Marmo pop-ups debuted in Kuwait City and Dubai with Bloomingdale’s.
Etoile La Boutique and Harvey Nichols in Dubai, Riyadh, and Doha, are among some of the retailers in the Middle East that sell Taller Marmo as well.
Browns was the first international retailer that bought Taller Marmo garments. The collection is also sold online at Net-a-porter, Matchesfashion, Mytheresa, Harrods, Farfetch, Harvey Nichols, and Ounass. The brand counts more than 60 points of sale worldwide.
With regard to the addition of its own online boutique, which is available in both English and Arabic, the duo said the brand-new website is a more direct, and different way for the brand to establish connections with clients around the world.
The e-commerce operation is also equipped with a customer care team consisting of English and Arabic-speaking client advisors.
“We can never compete with our retail partners like Mytheresa, Neta-a-porter, and Matches. They are offering a great experience already. So for us, the way we can introduce ourselves is to give our editorial point of view,” said the duo.
The other way to set itself apart from its wholesale partners is to offer exclusive styles. The site will be the first place where customers can shop the brand’s resort 2024 collection in exclusive fabrics and colors, as well as a selection of Taller Marmo hero styles predominantly in ivory and black.
“There are colorways that we love that are not part of the collection or some pieces that we think are amazing, but the buyers are too scared to commit. We have also done this piece that is super expensive for us, which is around 6,000 euros. It will be impossible to sell through retailers but we can put it on our own boutique,” the duo added.
Taller Marmo is named after the Spanish word for laboratory and the Italian word for marble, which was meant to indicate the designers’ experimentation with innovative techniques and luxury fabrics.
The duo first met at the Istituto Marangoni in Milan. Upon graduation, they started buying fabrics in 2012, working with a Sicilian seamstress, and moved to Dubai in 2013, setting up their company that year, where their modest fashions quickly became a local hit. In 2015 they won the regional Woolmark Prize and its accompanying 30,000 euros.
A year later, they relocated to Italy and began to expand the offering to include asymmetric gowns embellished with fringes and feathers to attract both modest and maximalist customers such as Cindy Crawford, Sharon Stone, Lupita Nyongo, Alicia Keys, Kylie Minogue, Salma Hayek, Kate Beckinsale, Iris Apfel, and Cynthia Erivo.
The brand sits in between premium contemporary and luxury fashion. A fringed crepe dress retails at 650 euros, while a feather-trimmed silk-chiffon caftan can go up to 3,500 euros. A bestselling Mrs. Ross caftan, inspired by the icon’s character in the movie “Mahogany,” is priced at 1,000 euros.
Next year marks the brand’s 10th anniversary. Although the duo is still not sure if they will celebrate the milestone with a fashion show, a 3,700-square-foot showroom/working space, converted from an old jewelry shop within the courtyard of a building in Milan, is due to open next January.
With the new space, the brand will be able to extend its bespoke service for celebrities and VIPs to all customers.
Meeting customers from around the world in person is also on the to-do list for the duo next year. They are planning a series of events and dinners with key retail partners in Europe, the Middle East, and the U.S., to connect with those who constantly tag the brand on social media.
“So far, we don’t have any kind of contact with the final customer. Our product is very specific. We are not the kind of people who push everyone into the same universe. We put the customer first. She can be a super sexy girl in Los Angeles, a Hijabi in Riyadh, or a super conservative European from Belgium, and we want to meet all of them.
“What all these women have in common is that they want to feel fabulous. It’s like something that you throw on and you’re good to go. You want to be playful and you don’t want to take it too seriously,” the duo added.
Destination wear is a new category for 2024 as well. The brand will debut its summer holiday-ready capsule exclusively with Net-a-porter next May.
“It will have the same caftan-based silhouette, but lighter in fabric and more casual. It’s for the same kind of women. Before she couldn’t really wear our piece to a holiday because it’s very occasion-specific, but now she can wear a linen cropped caftan with the pants to go to the bar or attend a fancy lunch,” according to the duo.
