Meet The Bocconi Grads Behind Italian Fashion Label Scarosso!

When Moritz Offeney and Marco Reiter enrolled on the SDA Bocconi School of Management MBA, it's quite likely that neither of them expected to come out as co-founders of an Italian high fashion label. 

 

Scarosso is the name of the young Italian label founded in 2010 by the two SDA Bocconi graduates. 

 

Moritz and Marco met during their MBA in 2009. Moritz, 31, comes from Germany while Marco, 26, comes from Austria. 

 

Marco gained his degree in Business Administration from Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration with a concentration in SME (Small- and Medium-sized Enterprise) Management and Investment Banking.

 

Moritz was employed at his family's law firm in Hannover and had intended to take his MBA lessons back to the practice in Germany. 

 

Inspired by the fashionable surroundings of Milan and the availability of talent for both design and production, they started working on a project to create a company selling good quality Italian shoes online. They observed that the European shoe market is the biggest in the world and that there is a gap in the market for men’s shoes in the 80 to 200 euros price range. 

 

They found a workshop in famous Italian shoe handcraft region, Montegranaro, central Italy. In October 2010 the first pair of classic shoes, the Oxford model, was ready to be worn. Of course, the help they received from SDA Bocconi was crucial in the early days of the business. They had the guidance of their professors, and their classmates were their first customers!

 

Scarosso moved its headquarters to Berlin to benefit from the exciting start up scene and for a chance to meet VCs in the e-commerce world. They sold 3,500 pairs of shoes in their first year and the company already has 11 employees!

 

They are currently making plans to grow their new women's footwear range and are currently negotiating a new investment from top-tier Berlin-based angel investors. Their website also allows you to custom design your own shoes!

 

Offeney and Reiter want to share what they've learned on this exciting journey into the fashion world, and dream of one day setting up a product design university perhaps in partnership with the Master in Fashion, Experience and Design Management at SDA Bocconi!