In the realm of fashion, designers typically lack the opportunity to orchestrate their own exits. Instead, the industry revels in the grandeur of a corporate dismissal, replete with a press release sweetened with faux sincerity from the designated spokesperson. You might be told that you’re “parting ways amicably,” while in reality, your metaphorical head rolls into the basket. The aftermath is usually marked by a cacophony of wounded pride, staged mournfulness, and executives feigning that the guillotine is merely a friendly exchange.
However, Loris Messina and Simone Rizzo of Sunnei decided to eschew this theatrical charade. Following their acquisition of a majority stake from Vanguards Group, the proprietor of Nanushka and Aeron, in 2020, they opted to craft their own exit narrative—one that was outspokenly campy, irreverent, and daringly out of the box. They staged a parody funeral, complete with humor sharp enough to cut through the fabric of the industry’s stifling pretenses. The duo authored their own obituary and performed it live, serving up a final expressive flourish that left no room for doubt.
True to their astute scrutiny masquerading as avant-garde performance art, the duo collaborated with Christie’s to conduct an auction featuring items that were, in reality, not for sale at all—a prime example of fashion’s often convoluted logic. Attendees received scratch-off lottery tickets pre-loaded with “fashion dollars.” My own winnings amounted to a mere F$30,000, while my neighbor casually claimed a windfall of F$200 million. Even in this fictitious economy, it seems I still reside in the wrong tax stratum.
The auction kicked off with a colossal Sunnei logo, a candid acknowledgment that branding is perhaps the sole valuable currency left in today’s marketplace. It fetched an astonishing F$111 million. The second lot? The founders themselves, ensconced in a wooden box, wheeled in like rare artifacts, commanding F$95 million. The new spring collection was paraded around the room by Sunnei team members dressing as telephone operators. Laughter and applause filled the air, and as attendees exited amidst the Sunnei aura—both pricey and unexpectedly cheerful—it seemed inconsequential that rain was soaking the streets outside.
But beyond this audacious spectacle lay the true crux: the disintegration of a brand. Moments later, in an unexpected twist, the designers announced online their decision to step down, transforming their entire performance into a theatrical farce of a going-out-of-business announcement. It was a genuine shock that has left fashion critics and followers scrambling to comprehend the upheaval.
From its inception, Sunnei has shone as a beacon of cleverness, piercing through the fog of trend-chasing and the relentless rearranging of players among major corporations. Fiercely independent, the brand has always functioned more like a quirky art platform than a conventional label, deftly eluding the typical fashion affiliations and obstinately refusing to abide by an industry often defined by cruelty and self-destruction.
Following the auction, Messina and Rizzo made a hasty retreat, opting to remain tight-lipped regarding their departure—a masterstroke of discretion that left the audience charged with myriad unanswered questions. In the accompanying press materials, they declared: “Fashion is finance; creativity is for sale. More than ever, today’s industry is governed by hidden yet powerful dynamics. This performance is not a direct critique, but a hyperbolic, theatrical metaphor of that mechanism. The Sunnei auction is a stage where the contradictions of the system are enacted, where what’s symbolic challenges what’s real, and desire itself is questioned.”
Arrivederci, Sunnei. Thank you for the exhilarating ride and for reminding us that, occasionally, brilliance departs just as mysteriously and abruptly as it emerges.
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