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About Fila
Mission
Fila
is a global sports brand with a rich Italian heritage that
understands the relationship between performance and style.
Inspired by our enduring core values, we design and build
products with exceptional performance, function and lifestyle
appeal.
Vision
Fila is an
authentic sports brand with superior lifestyle appeal.
Background
Fila is a subsidiary of Sport
Brands International (SBI) which controls directly or indirectly
around 20 international companies which create, develop, produce and
distribute sports apparel and footwear under the Fila and Ciesse
brands. SBI is a privately held company based in New York.
History
Established in 1911
in Biella, where the company is still located with R&D in
Montebelluna and offices in New York and Sparks, MD, Fila has
remained faithful to its Italian origins, and style, passion and
creativity, the essence of being Italian, are deeply embedded in its
genetic code.
Fila began life in the textiles business before
going on to specialize in knitwear production. The company only
entered the world of sport in 1973, after consolidating its
expertise in the Italian textiles industry and assimilating the
tradition of know-how that permeates it. It is no coincidence that
Fila was the first company to populate the tennis courts with its
mythical cotton rib, manufactured using a tubular process that until
then was only used for other products. And it was once again Fila
that brought about the demise of the white only tradition on the
courts by creating a line of colored tennis apparel.
As a
global sports brand, research, elegance and innovation combined with
a strong Italian identity remain the driving values behind the
company's development. This is demonstrated by successful
partnerships and product development initiatives with leading luxury
brands and international ambassadors of the Italian way of life like
Ferrari, Ducati and Pininfarina.
Great champions
The key to the visibility
and fortune of the Fila brand is its approach to sport. Not just
competition and striving to achieve records, but also a chance to
live life to its fullest and a source of emotion to watch and take
part in.
This concept is the product of an evolutionary
process that is reflected in the champions Fila has selected as its
international testimonials. The company has always been more
concerned with the person rather than the champion, from tennis
players and skiing champions of the recent past like Bjorn Borg,
Boris Becker, Monica Seles, Ingemar Stenmark, Alberto Tomba and
Deborah Compagnoni, to present day heroes like marathoner Margareth
Okayo, tennis stars Jennifer Capriati and Kim Clijsters, who mark
Fila's return in grand style to the sport with its sponsorship of
the US Open.
Collaboration with Fila Team champions also
extends to the design of apparel and footwear and the implementation
of Fila's www.fila.com portal.
Fila also supports key
initiatives to promote all aspects of sport. Like its Discovery
Kenya initiative, which recently celebrated its first big milestone:
ten years working to find and nurture the middle distance champions
of the future, offering them a chance and the facilities to develop
and achieve success in their countries of origin. The project's
success has also made it a model to export and copy, with Discovery
USA and the recent Discovery Women, another Rift Valley training
camp set up to help women athletes like Margareth Okayo, who started
out on the Discovery Kenya project and went on to win the New York
marathon in 2001,in 2002 and in 2003 the Boston marathon. In this
sense Discovery Women also represents a milestone for equal rights,
setting a precedent in Kenya with its rigid, centuries-old
traditions, where it is difficult for women, who play a fundamental
role in the domestic economy, to dedicate themselves full time to
running after school age.
It's also the driving force behind
Idropark Fila on the site of Milan's old seaplane station and a
popular place to try and escape the city's heat, now transformed
into a leisure area where sport can be practiced by everyone in
complete freedom and safety.
A dynamic
brand featuring high performance
With more than thirty
years' hands-on experience, Fila is one of the world's leading sport
brands, especially in running, tennis, fitness, cross-training and
other sports in specific markets (eg. soccer in the UK and
basketball in the US).
Fila is committed to using cutting
edge technology and innovative materials. Its most recent successes
include Speed Tech® (which combines the properties of carbon and
Kevlar® to deliver lightness, rapid response and protection for
sprinters) and the 3action damping system. R&D is performed at
the company's design development centre in Montebelluna (Treviso,
Italy), with top professionals in all the sports involved offering
their valuable advice.
Fila products are currently available
in about 50 countries worldwide at more than 771 sales outlets
(mono-branded and department stores) and the company is now
developing its direct distribution network. The first FILA
SPORT.LIFE STORE was officially opened in 2001 in Milan,
representing an absolute novelty on the retail front in terms of
design, technology and use of space.
After Milan, new
generation flagship stores were rolled out in Paris and Tokyo.
When seeing red means a passion for
sport
In June 2001 Fila signed a broad-based partnership
agreement under which Fila is now the official supplier of apparel
and footwear to the Ferrari Marlboro Team. The three-year contract,
which creates synergy between retail, co-marketing promotions and
the internet, also has a renewal option for an additional three
years. The new, exclusive Ferrari Replica and Ferrari Vintage
collections by Fila, which were launched on the market in March
2002, are two projects originating under an agreement which seals
the partnership between two like-minded Italian sports brands that
have the same ambitions in terms of style, performance and design.
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