Milan, 1986. Sandwich shops and fast-food restaurants are full of thousands of teen-agers and young adults that speak a picturesque slang and wear flashy and designer clothes. They are known as the “Paninari”.
They can be easily identified: You recognize them easily from the look: they wear exclusively designer clothes such as down jackets, sweatshirts, boots, shirts and the inevitable Americanino jeans / trousers, strictly at the ankles with a turn-up.
They are influenced by various factors: the American models of the cinema, the contemporary pop music and the commercials. As a result, they are expression of a young generation that promotes a life-style based on appearance and consumption.
The Paninari movement, which was born at the end of the Seventies and kept on spreading until the end of the Eighties, was located in Milan and it spread firstly all over Italy and later on abroad.
“Wild boys (wild boys) never lose it,
Wild boys (wild boys) never chose this way,
Wild boys (wild boys) never close your eyes, Wild boys always shine...”
The Duran Duran song, “Wild Boys”, is the
Paninari distinctive symbol as well as that of the Pet Shop Boys, “Paninaro”, another cult group of the movement.
“Passion and love and sex and money
Violence, religion, injustice and death
Paninaro, Paninaro, oh, oh, oh”
These lines might have awoken a hint of melancholy inside you. Maybe, you’re thinking about how beautiful it would be to simply travel back in time, even for a short period of time, only to feel the sensation of lightheartedness and the beauty of those years.
Unless you’re Marty McFly from “Back to the future”, you can’t travel back in time, but imagine having the possibility to carry a symbol of those years with you forever, above all of the Paninari movement.
This is possible
The Americanino brand is up on auction – and it can be yours from 251.000 euro. There’s already a base offer so hurry up; this is your last opportunity. The time limit for the collection of the offers has been scheduled for the 6/09/2022. You will find all the instructions to participate by clicking at the button located at the end of the page. In case of necessity, Aste Business staff is always available for you.
A bit of history: The origins
Americanino is a certified brand. The logo is composed by the stylization of the side profile of two redskin, one next to the other, that are looking at opposite directions, blue and white (or red), that overcome the brand name written in capital letters.
At the end of the Seventies, Adolfo Bardelle, ambulance driver at the Chioggia Hospital, created the Americanino company, together with his shareholders Eugenio Schiena and Renzo Franco.
For the production of the designed items, Bardelle received the support of the textile company of his wife, Elisabetta Converso. At the beginning, the company was located in some sheds in Cavarzere, in via Dalmazia.
The success
Thanks to the success, during the Eighties the company started looking for other locations for the production: the city of Pegolotte di Cona, which is located in Venice, was finally chosen for this reason.
Together with other items and brands of clothing (like puffer jackets),
the Paninari movement chose the
Americanino clothes as its distinctive features, also thanks to a careful campaign of advertising marketing.
In 1985, The
Americanino company merged with the company that was initially responsible for its production and that was assembling for other companies: the Rinomate Jeanserie Venete S.p.A. The enlarged company preserved the brand name Americanino. Simultaneously, at the peak of his success, Bardelle coins various sub-brands, like Outsider, Kinghino e Frank Scozzese: one of these brands, Cohen, which was originally designed for designer jeans, will never be used for the items and, for this reason, it will manage to avoid the failure by being kept from the son of the boss and relaunched during the twenty-first century.
The challenge
Due to a change in the consumer preferences, at the beginning of the Nineties
Americanino tried to adapt to the emergent fashion trends but its efforts clashed with the image of the company perceived by the consumers, which was strictly associated with the world of the Paninari’s clothes. By moving its headquarter from Padua to Rovereto,
Americanino changed his name to that of the Rinomate Jeanserie S.p.A to mitigate the effects of an upcoming failure. In 1992,
Americanino went bankrupt. The liquidators of the time decided to remove the items from the brands because they thought they were still worthy of investment and marketable. In that way,
Americanino was one of the brands which was identified among the others by the Greek creditor company that was providing the company of Pegolotte with tissues. At that point, the history of the Americanino company and its Italian production came to an end. In 2009 the brand
“Americanino” was purchased by the Meta Apparel company, located in Arezzo, which is still its owner.
Meta Apparel used the
Americanino brand from 2005 as licensee (and as the owner from 2009), with the purpose of relaunching it on the Italian market and abroad, additionally by investing a large amount of money in the brand to extend its usage, as well as in the clothes, deodorants, perfumes and accessories, achieving new registrations at the European patent office. In London, a new Americanino collection debuted in 250 stores with a show room.
The huge economic global crisis of 2008 had consequences on Meta Apparel that is now in bankruptcy proceedings at the Court of Arezzo, with subsequent sale of its main assets.
