Ponzano, 20 September 2011. At 6.30pm today, the completely renovated San Babila Sisley store in Milan will be opened with a special event attended by Alessandro Benetton. The launch of the new Sisley concept store follows the new-look brand image and website.

"We have begun a comprehensive programme of investments, covering the brand and the structure supporting its strategy and development," explains Alessandro Benetton, Executive Deputy Chairman of Benetton Group. “This is evidence of our desire to see Sisley evolve, making the brand increasingly central to the Group's growth and diversification. The new Sisley concept store is an essential step in this process, and will be extended to the entire worldwide sales network, starting with Italy."

Luca Gori, Sisley Business Unit Director, comments, "The Sisley product is 'fashion reinterpreted for everyone'. With this concept, we wanted to get even closer to consumers, and at the same time, to allow them to express their personality without external constraints. This spirit of independence is expressed not only through the product, it is also seen as inspiration for a lifestyle of freedom, with opportunities to experience it and effective means of expressing it.  All this and more can be found inside the new concept store, on the revamped website sisley.com, in the blog/magazine Independentpeople.com, on social media, and in the new communication campaign.”

To celebrate the official inauguration of the new concept store, a select preview of the spring-summer 2012 collection will be given. During the event, attended by the fashion community, press and public, Alessandro Benetton will be the first to write on the special Independent Wall in Piazza San Babila, giving us his own thoughts on the concept of independence. After him, the guests and public will also have the opportunity to give their own interpretation of the theme, and their words may even be used on a new series of Sisley t-shirts.

The new Sisley concept store aims to welcome customers as individuals, each with their own style and personality, in an atmosphere of contemporary elegance. The predominant idea is to enhance displays with a “clarity of presentation” that enables customers to appreciate the looks proposed, and to choose their colour and size quickly and easily. Every detail, each element of the presentation, is designed to convey Sisley's atmosphere of independence, where customers choose according to their own personality.

Another prominent feature is the 24-metre screen that runs across the store windows, like a comic strip with stories to relate, full of contents generated by the blog/magazine Independentpeople.com. This one-of-a-kind installation is created by FABRICA, Benetton Group's communication research centre. With the synchronisation of several projectors, the screen can interact directly with the consumer, displaying content created by FABRICA, as well as content generated by the web community.

The brand's new mood is also expressed in the autumn-winter 2011/2012 advertising campaign. The stars of the images are unique individuals and their decisive, direct way of presenting themselves, shows that nothing is pre-set, not even the way we dress, as if to say, “your value lies in who you are, not in what you wear”.

Concept store design: studio Arcabi, Florence.
Sisley screens project overseen by Alfio Pozzoni, Special Projects Director, FABRICA.
Live music from the band All About Kane.

Sisley Store Milan
Piazza San Babila
6.30-8.30 pm