His life story sounds like Hollywood. Philipp Plein slept in love hotels and now owns villas in Cannes and Bel-Air. The German designer has made it from nothing to the top with his glittering fashion. His success story is now available as a book.
He never completed his law degree. Instead, he designed dog beds and slept in a love hotel because he couldn’t afford more expensive accommodation. And now he is the most successful German fashion designer. A multimillionaire who owns villas in Cannes and Bel-Air, who flies around the globe in a private jet – and makes clothes for the rich and super-rich.
Who that is? Philipp Plein. The 45-year-old from Munich, who grew up in Nuremberg, reaches fans all over the world with his designs that exude sex and rock’n’roll. His company holding company based in Lugano, of which he is the sole shareholder, generates sales of more than 200 million euros.
Plein is one of the very few remaining independent designers in the 350 billion euro luxury market. It is otherwise dominated by giants such as LVMH, Kering and Richemont, which include brands such as Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior, Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, Cartier and Montblanc. He is exposed to tough competition – and has held his own for 25 years.
From underdog to fashion czar
School? University? Weren’t really his thing. “You learn a lot at school, but you don’t learn anything about life. Learning by doing. That’s what made me who I am today,” says Plein in his recently published biography, which traces his path from underdog to head of his fashion empire . “I always had to teach myself everything, right from the start.”
Plein’s vita could have come from a Hollywood script. His biological father was a doctor who drank too much and beat his mother. She separated from him when the boy was three years old and then remarried a doctor. Plein’s childhood was sheltered. But there was always a rebel inside him who swam against the tide. He wore his hair shoulder-length, landed on the cover of “Bravo Girl” and wiped out the ashtrays at the Nuremberg discotheque “Mach 1” on the weekend. After graduating from high school, Plein set off on a trip to America, where he kissed Miss California and maxed out his parents’ credit card.
Le Corbusier sofa as a dog bed
His mother gave him his first business idea. She and her husband had two hunting dogs. They regularly chewed through Ikea straw baskets. His mother asked her son: “Can you think of something?” Plein discovered a Le Corbusier sofa in a Nuremberg car dealership and recreated it in miniature size: as a dog bed. Purchase price depending on size: 1600 or 1700 D-Marks. Plein was laughed at. But Jennifer Lopez and Antonio Banderas loved the dog bed. It became a hit. The designer now designed a wealth of other furniture, including lamps.
Entering fashion was a coincidence. To promote a dressing system made of stainless steel at a Paris design fair, Plein hung up an old Bundeswehr jacket that his sister Gloria had decorated. She had made animals out of scraps of leather, with pink and yellow bows attached to the hips that could be tied at the front. The piggy soon gave way to a skull made of Swarovski stones on the back of the army jacket, accompanied by the sentence: “Rich Pirates by Philipp Plein.” It became a bestseller. Fashion stores all over Germany scrambled to be able to offer the jacket. One of the first major customers was Claudia Carpendale, the ex-wife of pop singer Howard Carpendale, who sold truckloads of Plein clothing in her store on Mittelstrasse in Cologne.
Plein’s recipe for success is also his motto: You have to be either better or different. “I wasn’t better, I was different. I didn’t study fashion or design. I naturally did everything differently – and that brought success.” Turning weaknesses into strengths was his thing. “I’m a world champion at that.” Also in inventing fashion that catches the eye and sparkles. Plein loves it when it glitters. His products were always overloaded with Swarovski and embroidery. “If I had stood at the trade fair wearing a black T-shirt or cashmere sweater, I would not have sold anything. The product simply had to be strong and loud.”
Fashion show in the ghost train
But strong design alone is not enough. Plein knows how to attract attention. At his first trade fair appearances he offered an Elvis impersonator. In Berlin at Bread & Butter he put up a ghost train that he got from a showman. He put a black Plein leather jacket over Dracula, who stood up from a coffin.
He remains true to the principle of spectacle to this day. His fashion shows in Milan and New York are folk festivals. He rolled over cars in monster trucks, plowed through the water on jet skis and spun a chain carousel. Once he put up a UFO, from which Irina Shayk stepped out. She was greeted outside by a huge robot that gave her its grasping arm.
Plein spends a lot of money on his shows and events. Instead, he saves money elsewhere. He has mastered guerrilla marketing. A farce with Ferrari is famous in the scene. In 2019, the German parked his sneakers on the hood of his green Ferrari, which he parked in front of a fountain. He sprayed the garden hose towards the car and two women in bikinis soaped it up in provocative poses. Ferrari saw this with horror and took legal action.
Plein, who shared the dispute with his social media community, ended up having to pay Ferrari 300,000 euros in damages. But in return he had secured enormous media attention. “Every canal worker in Mexico knows about it,” one of Plein’s advisers says in the book.
Always new opportunities
While most brands spend huge amounts of money on influencers, Plein himself is the main brand ambassador for his fashion empire. He has three million followers on Instagram, whom he keeps up to date with his luxury lifestyle every hour. He films his villas with his cell phone camera, shows his partner and cuddles his sons.
If you measure it by the sales of his companies, you have to say: his success proves him right. And how does it continue? “I don’t know. I wish I did. I’m looking for an exit. I haven’t found it yet. But I always find opportunities.”