Bruno Schiavi | |
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Born | Sydney, Australia | 10 July 1972
Known for | Pocket Sock |
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Bruno Schiavi (born 10 July 1972) is an Australian fashion designer and businessman.
Schiavi was born on 10 July 1972 in Sydney's Inner West.[1] His father worked for Italian embassies; the family moved several times before eventually settling in Australia.[2] He attended Rosebank College in the Inner Western Sydney suburb of Five Dock, graduating in 1990.
Schiavi's university studies were in business and marketing.[3] He worked at Target for eight years, starting in the 1980s. In 1995 he and his mother launched Jupi Corporation to sell women's underwear over the internet.[2]
In 1998 Schiavi invented a sock with a zippered pocket and sold it through Gowings.[3] This sock fuelled the growth of his company, which in 2004 had sales of AUD 3 million, mostly from Schiavi-designed underwear.
In 2003 Schiavi began working with celebrities when he had Big Brother contestants promote underwear designed by him. He has since collaborated with Priscilla Presley,[2] Brett Lee, Janet Jackson,[4] and the Kardashians. In the mid-2000s Schiavi's company expanded to Los Angeles.[2]
Many of his products, including the Kardashian Kollection, are sold for the mass market through department stores like Sears.[2] By 2013 Jupi Corporation had a turnover of $75 million, 60 percent of that from outside Australia.[2]
On 12 August 2013 Schiavi launched One Dress a Day, an online store that sells a new Schiavi-designed dress every day.[5]
In 2015 Schiavi expanded into children's clothing, developing a Kardashian Kids line for his Kardashian Kollection brand when the Kardashians had children. The new brand was a commercial success, with 86 percent of the stock sold within 72 hours of the launch in stores and online via Babies R Us. Following Schiavi's usual business model of mass market sales, the Kardashian Kids brand will be sold in Woolworths Big W stores in Australia from August 2015.[6]