Wolford: Grit Seymour, Creative Director

By

Bruno Joly

Published
Nov 10, 2014

Wolford is pursuing its strategy to refocus and to upgrade its image. The Austrian manufacturer of hosiery and underwear has just created a Creative Director position. A position that has been entrusted to Grit Seymour. It should be said that Wolford has never really put forth an artistic director as such, unless we count Antonio Berardi ten years ago with the launch of the ready-to-wear line and his successor Roland van der Kemp, who left the company in April. But the new position has a much larger scope than just head of design.

Grit Seymour has long-standing experience in women's fashion and up until now was just recently a professor at the University of Berlin, in charge of experimental design courses. In the 1990s she spent time at, among others, Max Mara, Daniel Hechter and Donna Karan, before joining Hugo Boss in 1999 and leading the design of the first women's collections. After spending time at Eres, where she was a consultant for Five Foxes, René Lezard, and launching her own brand, T-A-P-E, Grit Seymour is coming to Wolford to make her mark as of spring/summer 2016.

Her functions, other than designing the collections, will include serving as an internal consultant providing expertise to the retail and marketing teams, among others, to help the company continue the development of its brand in a systematic manner. This is also happening this fall with the campaign signed Mario Testino.

After some somplicated years, Wolford came out of its third quarter with earnings. Thus, from May to July, the company recorded 3 million euros (2.3 million pounds) in earnings before interest and tax. Its revenue was slightly down to approximately 32 million.