Fratelli Fila

Fila was founded in 1911 in Biella, Italy located in the foothills of the Italian Alps. The Fila brothers' business started with textile & knitwear. Throughout the years, the business grew beyond the borders of Biella to become a well-known quality knitwear producer for Italy. In 1942, the company merged with the Fratelli Fila company. By 1972 had... sales of over one billion lire and a total workforce of more than 250 people 1973 - Introduction to Fila Apparel: The White Line As of the company prepared for its bold debut into the sportswear industry, Frachey tasked two men with ensuring its success: the innovative designer Pier Luigi Rolando, the artist behind our most iconic designs, and Alessandro Galliano, the superbly knowledgeable engineering director. Inspired by Frachey's own climbs on the cliffs near Biella, Rolando and Galliano began their work with the understanding that sport is life expressed through motion, and that sportswear must complement, not overpower, the athlete. They set to work creating fabric designed to mirror the movements of the athletes themselves, adhering smoothly to the body like a second skin yet providing a sense of total freedom. The product of this collaboration was Fila's premiere outerwear collection, which debuted in 1972. Rolando's designs, utilizing wool and cashmere in novel ways, quickly became renowned for their seamless combination of grace and vigor. The following year, Fila's name was firmly established through the sports apparel industry with the introduction of the now legendary White Line collection. Named as a respectfully irreverent jab at the traditional product lines and the ubiquitous presence of all-white garments that had long dominated tennis apparel, the White Line collection was a fusion of the provocative and exemplary. The collection, aesthetically astonishing in its novel design and unconventional use of vibrant colors, yet beautifully simple in its effectiveness and function, immediately took the world by storm. The premiere collection marked the ...Read More