Etro Fashion Story

Etro was founded in 1968 by Gerolamo "Gimmo" Etro as a textile design company. By the time the company was born, Gimmo and his wife, Roberta, an antiques dealer, had amassed a collection of 300 antique shawls, still one of the largest private collections in existence today. The main stylistic driver for Etro over its first decades was the paisley pattern, and variations on this theme. The company's headquarters is located in Milan on Via Spartaco, and was refurbished in 1977.The headquarters includes textile art archived in their in-house library. Future textiles head Jacopo Etro later commented on this period, stating that he had started to visit the archive when he was a child, spending many hours copying the fabric designs and experimenting with his own creative style. After a trip to India made by Etro executives, the furnishing textiles line made its debut in 1981. The "swirling" paisley design found on this trip is now "synonymous" with the label according to Elle Magazine.