Back in the mid-2010s, the Italian luxury shoe brand Gianmarco Lorenzi was a celebrity favorite known for its daring and extreme high heels. But what happened to brand which so many customers knew simply as “GML”?
The Gianmarco Lorenzi label closed suddenly and mysteriously in 2015 after nearly 40 years in business. It happened without warning, leaving shoe fans stunned. Industry publications said nothing about the closure of GML.
All this was truly surprising as Gianmarco Lorenzi seemed to have been going from strength to strength with celebrity endorsements at all-time highs and sales surging.
In 2010, Gianmarco Lorenzi’s sales jumped a whopping 33% to 22 million euros, and the brand that said it stood for “femininity, sensuality, luxury and fashion” seemed firmly established at the high end of the market.
That year we swooned over the Gianmarco Lorenzi rhinestone collection and the unique platforms that were an essential part of it. Yet within five years, the name Gianmarco Lorenzi was dead.
The simple answer is that what happened to Gianmarco Lorenzi is a mystery. What seems to have happened is that its expansion plans failed and the brand just suddenly stopped. It is unclear whether it went bankrupt or not.
In this article we set out what we know and don’t know about the rise and fall of Gianmarco Lorenzi.
Establishment of Gianmarco Lorenzi
Although many people think there is a real shoemaker called Gianmarco Lorenzi, the name is actually a brand not a person. The Gianmarco Lorenzi label was created and owned by the Renzi “footwear family” in Italy.
The Renzi family had a long history of shoemaking. In the 1950s, Antonio and Italia Renzi started producing children’s leather shoes in the Marche region of Italy, an area known today for its leadership in the shoe business.
Antonio and Italia Renzi’s eldest son, Gianni Renzi, started to draw shoes at the age of 5 and he eventually began designing children’s shoes for the brand. His brothers Marco and Lorezo were also involved in the family business.
In 1975 the three Renzi brothers transitioned the business from children’s shoes to women’s fashion shoes. They called the new brand “Gianmarco Lorenzi” – a combination of their names Gianni, Marco and Lorenzo.
Gianni Renzi was the designer and together the brothers transformed a little family business into a company that was well-known worldwide.
Gianmarco Lorenzi takes off
In 1983 a limited liability company was founded for the Gianmarco Lorenzi shoe factory in the coastal town of Porto Sant’Elpidio: Calzaturificio Gianmarco Lorenzi Srl.
Gianmarco Lorenzi’s luxury credentials were established early during this period: as well as being Italian-designed, the shoes were also 100% hand produced in Italy at this very factory.
Fine materials were always used, and the factory was staffed with experienced “artigiani” – artesian craftspeople some of whom had been with the brand since its very early days.
As early as 1987, advertisements can be found for Gianmarco Lorenzi’s women’s shoes as far away as Singapore.
Internet archives also provide a wealth of historical content from the early 2000s. For example in 2002, the owner of a new shoe boutique in Saluzzo Italy praised the Gianmarco Lorenzi collections as suitable for a woman who loves to enhance her own femininity.
A 2004 presentation at the International Milan Fashion Week followed; by 2005, the Gianmarco Lorenzi website was advertising showrooms in Paris and Milan.
By 2010, Gianmarco Lorenzi was a hot label now being sold by luxury footwear retailer Biondini Paris and plans were underway for a US expansion. Platform heels, such as those shown above, were particularly popular for the label at this time.
Gianmarco Lorenzi London
After this, things started to get a little weird.
In 2011, a website Gianmarco Lorenzi London popped up (http://gianmarcolorenzilondon.com) as well as the original Gianmarco Lorenzi site (http://www.gianmarcolorenzi.com). The terms and conditions of the London website said that the website and goods were provided by a company registered in England called Ego Fashion Box.
Around this time, a Gianmarco Lorenzi London store opened at 40 South Molton Street, London, W1K 5RW. In 2013, the Gianmarco Lorenzi London site got its own Instagram.
Other franchise stores quickly followed too. Not only were stores quickly established in European fashion capitals of London, Moscow and St Petersburg, but they popped up in Dubai and Jebbah as well.
Gianmarco Lorenzi’s 2012 collections
While all this was going on, in November 2011 Gianmarco Lorenzi promised its Spring / Summer 2012 collection. The collection didn’t make it to the brand’s website until March 2012, which should perhaps have raised alarm bells.
However it was worth waiting for and we swooned over it in a review.
Around the same time, Gianmarco Lorenzi came up with another winner: a limited edition black label range.
The black label line had its distribution limited to 70 dealers worldwide. Each pair of high heels was handmade and individually numbered, with many featuring Swarosvki crystals.
We reviewed this Gianmarco Loreni black label collection and loved it as well.
2013 and 2014 Gianmarco Lorenzi website
In January 2013, the Gianmarco Lorenzi website began announcing that it was under construction. This wasn’t completely unexpected as the old site had been built on Flash, an outdated technology.
Customers were given updates on social media while they waited for the new website. These included a March 2013 collection for Spring / Summer 2013 which introduced floral heels, continuing the bright trends that had proved popular earlier.
The offerings in the middle of 2013 were even better – we dubbed them the ultimate shoe tease.
It wasn’t until April 2014 that the new Gianmarco Lorenzi website launched, highlighting the new Spring / Summer 2014 collection. But the website was weird – badly weird – and this overshadowed the content.
Again, this should have been a warning: a fashion brand – no matter how eccentric shouldn’t have had its website offline for over a year.
Fortunately, by November 2014 the crazy content had been removed from the GML website and the Fall/Winter 2014 collection launched. The undoubted highlights of yet another great collection were the ankle boots as we reported.
Gianmarco Lorenzi’s Spring / Summer 2015 collection
Gianmarco Lorenzi’s last collection was for spring / summer 2015.
Perhaps saddest of all, GML may have saved its best for last. The sensational GML laser cut sandals from the collection (above) were turning heads on the internet and in person when the label suddenly vanished. Its social media accounts froze in time and the label’s websites went offline.
What is left of Gianmarco Lorenzi today?
Italian business records today show that the company founded for the Gianmarco Lorenzi shoe factory in 1983 is now ceased or cancelled.
The original GML website is long since gone, as are other websites that seemed to be part of the expansion: http://gianmarcolorenzigroup.com/ and http://gianmarcolorenzishare.com/ seem to be examples of that.
The GML London experiment was over nearly as soon as it begun. Its Instagram account, begun in 2013, lasted only until 2014. A mere 230 followers are probably wondering what has happened to the brand they haven’t heard from in nearly a decade.
In 2022 the London shop is now the site of the Flocafe Expresso Room, a cafe.
As we mentioned above, the London website and goods were provided by an English company called Ego Fashion Box.
Searches of UK company records show that Ego Fashion Box was dissolved by voluntary strike off on 3 September 2019, with its last accounts made up to 30 June 2016.
None of the Renzis were ever an officer or person with significant control of the company. Its websites are long since gone.
All in all, it is a sad and mysterious end for Gianmarco Lorenzi – a label that was poised to take on the world, but ran out of money, stream, desire or something else.
Or was there a falling out between the Renzi brothers? We may never quite know.
In 2015, Gianni Renzi struck out on what seems to have been his own, establishing a luxury shoe brand styled as Gianni Renzi Couture.
But this label is also seemingly gone – it last posted to Instagram in February 2019, although Gianni himself appeared alive and well promoting it the following month on Fashion TV. The Gianni Renzi Couture website is also now defunct.
While we’re not sure exactly why Gianmarco Lorenzi stopped trading, we do know that it produced some spectacular shoes while it was still around. Thank you to Gianni Renzi and his family for the memories.