FAREWELL FAKE BRAND: Carlo Pazolini Packs It In

Oh, the post-Holiday season is crueler than ever for a struggling brand this year.
On the heels of the C.Wonder shutdown comes word that flashy shoe and accessory brand Carlo Pazolini is shuttering all of its U.S. stores. After entering the U.S. market just a couple of years ago, the label which seemed to come out of nowhere, may have fallen to the same factors that knocked out C.Wonder: opening lavish, flagship sized showplace stores in expensive high-profile locations without benefit of a devoted customer base to support them.
Could the plummeting Russian economy be a factor in the shutdown? For those who haven't yet figured it out, there never was an actual person named Carlo Pazolini. It is a made-up name created by a Russian entrepreneur who wanted to create the illusion of Italian luxury brand. Of course, most of the brand's product is actually made in China, and the discovery that the brand's glamorous heritage was basically fabricated has left many customers cold. All of this can easily be forgiven if the brand has something else to offer, but the product proved itself to be fairly undistinguished in a super-competitive shoe and accessory market. Still, the shoes might become magically more appealing at $50 each which is what our friends at Racked tell us they are going for at the store's Closing/Sample Sale taking place over the next five days at the brand's Broadway store in SoHo, the last one still open in the U.S.
Whether or not the brand's website and wholesale division will remain open remains to be seen, but customers should beware, this year's retail casualty rate starting high. Hopefully, it will slow down sooner rather than later.

Carlo Pazolini Closing Soho Store With a Major Sample Sale (Racked)