Today, Gianguido Tarabini, the current sole administrator of Blufin S.p.A Group, celebrates his 40th birthday. Happy birthday from Lingerie Alley Blog!

Gianguido Tarabini, the son of the fashion designer Anna Molinari and Gianpaolo Tarabini, the owners of Blufin S.p.A. Group, was born in Carpi on February 15, 1969. After graduation he decided to pursue his passion for sports cars and his aspiration to develop hisprofessional experience on his own and thus began working in a luxury car dealership in the administration, management and sales departments.

Gianguido Tarabini (above)

In 1992 he joined his parent’s company, where he began gathering necessary experience, working in various sectors of the company in order to gain a concrete and global vision of the operation and problems of a large business.

Since 2004, he has been the director of the Blufin SpA licenses, including the “Blumarine“, “Anna Molinari” and “Blugirl” labels, overseeing the stipulation of contracts, coordinating the product and the image (advertising campaigns) of the individual collections all the way to their presentation at Sector Trade Fairs, as well as controlling the Royalties.

In recent years he has also managed the company’s relations with suppliers, clients and representative offices. He has managed the Blufin real estate patrimony, personally following the development of company distribution networks and in particular of the
company-owned stores (choosing locations, dealing with contract problems, handling relations with the architects in charge of works).

Following the death of his father in May 2006, he has become Sole Administrator of Blufin SpA. He is also the administrator of the Hotel Touring in Carpi, which is owned by his mother, Anna Molinari. He has overseen the hotel’s complete renovation and organized its management, as he continues to follow its administration.

He loves sports of every kind and competes on an amateur level, in particular in tennis and soccer. His passions revolve around sports cars. He is married and has two children.

Michelle Mone is an example of a woman who is not afraid to go after her dream. At 37 years old, she is the founder and co-owner of MJM International Ltd, a privately owned company, which she formed in November 1996 with her husband Michael Mone. 

Michelle Mone (above)

Michelle is not just a beautiful young woman, but also a highly successful entrepreneur and marketer . It has been a little more than 10 years since she started her business, but she already has won a number of prestigious awards including:

‘World Young Business Achiever Award‘ that she won in April 2000 at a ceremony in the Epcot Centre, Florida, and ‘Business Woman of the Year‘ at the Corporate Elite Awards, won by Michelle in October 2000 .  

Her achievements have further been recognised by Prince Charles, who asked Michelle to join the Board of Directors for The Princes Scottish Youth Business Trust in 2001. And in November 2002, Michelle was awarded an Honorary Degree, Doctor of the University, by Paisley University.

In May 2003 Management Today voted Michelle one of the top 30 woman entrepreneurs in the UK. Michelle was listed alongside the likes of Martha Lane Fox and Stella McCartney.

Michelle and Michael have three children: Rebecca, Declan and Bethany. Due to an illness in the family, Michelle left school aged 15 with no qualifications. She spent a number of years successfully modelling in Glasgow and then went on to work for Labatts Brewers in her home town. When the Labatts brand moved to Whitbread, Michelle chose to take redundancy. Then in November of 1996 she started her own business.

Michelle & Michael Mone with kids: Rebecca, Declan and Bethany (above)

It only took nine year, and in 2005, Michelle was presenting BBC’s Mind Your Own Business, advising business owners on what they are doing right and where they are going wrong, and offering straightforward suggestions on how to improve their businesses.

Since then Michelle has made frequent appearances on BBC’s The Apprentice as well as being a correspondent for GMTV. Ultimo and Michelle have featured in Colleen McLaughlin’s ITV show to find a Real Woman to front the Ultimo brand.

Michelle Mone has built a hugely successful career on an incredibly simple concept:  giving today’s women what they want.

It all began in 1977, when a businessman Roy Raymond (1946 – August 26, 1993), a graduate of Tufts University and The Stanford Graduate School of Business, opened a small lingerie shop called “Victoria’s Secret” in Stanford Shopping Center with an $80,000 capital (a $40,000 bank loan and $40,000 borrowed from relatives).  During its first year in business, the company earned $500,000 and within five years Victoria’s Secret had five stores, a popular catalogue, and a gross income of $6,000,000 per year.

Victoria’s Secret Logo from 1978 (above)

The idea and inspiration to open a lingerie store came as a result of Roy Raymond feeling embarassed when he was trying to purchase lingerie  (a negligee) for his wife in public and awkward enviroment of a department store. Like most men, he did not know anything about ladies’ underwear, and the store’s sales staff, uncertain about a man in the women’s underwear department, were wary about answering Raymond’s awkward questions. An MBA graduate from Stanford, Raymond thought that there would be a market for a shop where male customers wanting something sexy, skimpy, or silky did not have to be embarrassed.

Cover of the First Victoria’s Secret Catalog 1978 (above)

This is truly an interesting detail to know, because a little more than 30 years later, most men I know unanimously agree on one thing – that pink walls of Victoria’s Secret store make them feel dizzy and that they don’t really enjoy being there.  So, although Victoria’s Secret did become a very successfull business enterprise, Roy Raymond’s hopes for making it a comfortable place for men to shop did not come true.  And maybe this is one of the reasons for Victoria’s Secret subsequent success, that Leslie H. Wexner’s, another great businessman, who bought the chain from Roy Raymond, decided to abandon Raymond’s vision of a haven for male buyers. Contrary to Raymond, Wexner believed that although men do give sexy nightgowns occasionally as gifts, women buy more than 90 percent of intimate apparel, and this is why women, not men, should become the sole focus of the chain’s marketing.

Victoria’s Secret Advertisement, 1980 (above)

In 1982, Victoria’s Secret five stores and a 42-page mail-order catalogue were making a profit of $6 million a year when Mr. Raymond sold them for about $4 million to Leslie H. Wexner, the man who would mastermind the chain’s real growth. Wexner had already built a retailing empire in the Limited Apparel Group, the women’s-apparel chain he’d started in 1963. He thought Victoria’s Secret could be just as big. Raymond later opened a children’s clothing shop which went bankrupt in less than two years, leaving him near destitute. Despondent over the failure of both the business and his marriage, he walked halfway across San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge and jumped to his death on 26 August 1993. His body was pulled out of the bay a week later.

Colombian apparel company Annette has been in business for over 25 years, when the company officially established a business in US in 2002.  With a business reputation of a long-time international apparel manufacturer, the company was already selling high quality shapewear, special occasion pieces, and post-surgical garments to 18 different countries worldwide.

Annette Lingerie Logo (above)

Within months, Annette International, headed by Sharon Singer, was born and the company began shipping to accounts here in the United States with Annette’s headquarters located in Sharon’s mother’s small Miami apartment.

Sharon Singer, Founder of Annette Lingerie in US (above)

Seven years, two small children, one extremely supportive husband, one committed US/Colombian team and many business trips, phone calls and trade shows later - Sharon Singer overcame all challenges and, thanks to her, Annette has taken a foothold in today’s competitive market. During this time of building and development, the company’s entire team have worked tirelessly to understand what women want and moreover, what they need. In turn, the company has developed products made specifically to make women feel great from the inside out.

Annette, Secret Weapons Collection, Seamless Bra & Thong (above)

Annette new collections directly reflect these efforts. Secret Weapons by Annette, which is comprised of 14 innovative 100% seamless shapewear styles, will be followed by Diva Defined, an adjustable shapewear line designed to compliment the curvaceous figure. Simultaneously, the company is introducing its Seamless Technology line for women needing garments following cosmetic surgery.

Annette Lingerie, Secret Weapons Collection, High Back Bodyshaper (above)

 It was the end of the 19th century, the period that followed the Second Empire in France and is often known as ” La Belle Epoque” or ” The Beautiful Era“. Paris led the way in fashion in all the courts of Europe. The full crinolines and French taffetas were all the rage, from the salons of Saint Petersburg to the most exclusive balls in far off Lousiana. It was the period of great scientific discoveries and the Industrial Revolution. It was also the time of a new wave of emigration from Europe to the far off New World.

The year of 1889 marks a lingerie history as the year when the first modern bra was invented by Herminie Cadolle. Born in 1845, she was a woman of action and the thought of adventure did not frighten her. Argentina was one of the new nations of rapidly expanding South America. She decided to pack her bags and leave for Buenos Aires where she opened a lingerie boutique.

Herminie was not only a woman of action but also a businesswoman, exceptionally rare at that time. Very quickly her boutique became the meeting place for the most fashionable women ofthe new capital. Herminie made many trips backwards and forwards to France and brought back French seamstresses to train the local workers. Her business grew rapidly. She extended her premises and opened new boutiques.

An energetic and enterprising woman, she never missed one of the Great Universal Exhibitions, which were regularly held throughout the world. She patented her invention and showed it at the Great Exhibition of 1889 (for which the Eiffel Tower was built). Herminie had had a simply ingenious idea. For women’s comfort she had cut in two the traditional corset. She had invented the first bra which she patented and initially called the “corselet gorge” and later “le bien-être“. The first images of the bra appeared as a two-piece undergarment in a corset catalogue. The lower part was a corset for the waist, the upper supporting the breasts by means of shoulder straps. Her description reads “designed to sustain the bosom and supported by the shoulders”.

Herminie Cadolle’s ”le bien-être” Bra (above) 

Herminie was also the first to encourage the spinners of Troyes to incorporate rubber into the threads of the fabric. The time was right, with the development of cultivated rubber trees. The elastic thread (at the time called the “rubberthread”) would take over from whalebones and lacing.

Herminie found the time between trips to open a boutique in Paris at 24 Rue de la chaussee d’Antin. It was left under the direction of her daughter-in-law Marie, who would take over for the second generation.

Cadolle Boutique in Paris at 24 Rue de la Chaussée d’Antin (above)

Herminie worked hard to develop her business. Two hundred people were employed in the Parisian workshops to manufacture and prepare her designs which were already being exported to the far corners of the earth. Herminie had seen the success of a certain sales method that was already in use in the USA – sale by mail order. It was demonstrated to the customer how to take their measurements, and how to place an order for what we would now call “demi-mesure” – these clothes were adapted to fit the customer’s measurements. This method proved successful, there was no other company in the market offering products that could rival them, and the awards reflected this success : medals from Saint-Petersburg in 1904, Chicago in 1906, Saint-Louis in 19O7, Paris in 1910 etc…

In 1914 world war 1 commenced. Accompanying her three sons who where going to enlist in the french army, she returned to Paris. Herminie would never return to Argentina. This first world wide conflict would radically change the trade of the corset maker. The men had gone to the war, and women were called upon to work in the factories; the corset was out, and the bra was the essential undergarment,mass-produced for the manual workers.

Herminie Cadolle understood the importance of a retail boutique to sell this type of garment. The area of the Chaussée d’Antin in Paris was the centre of fashion at the end of the 19th century . It was there that the Galeries Lafayette was established and, logically, it was there that Herminie set up her first boutique. During the decade 1910-1920, the Madeleine-Concorde district became the new fashion “capital”.

The Cadolle company, still family-owned, claims today that Herminie ‘freed women by inventing the first Bra.’ Her garment was probably more comfortable than the original corsets. By 1905 the upper half was being sold separately as a soutien-gorge, the name by which bras are still known in France.  Herminie became a fitter of bras to queens, princesses, dancers, and actresses. Mata Hari was among her customers. Herminie Cadolle died in 1926 in France.

Mata Hari (above)