Renzo Rosso

"Diesel, after so many years, was tired," sighed Renzo Rosso, the company's 59-year-old founder, sitting in his art-strewn office on the top floor of the company's modern, campus-like headquarters, set amidst the greenery of the Italian countryside about an hour outside of Venice. "We're a good company, but the brand had started to suffer," continued Rosso. For more than two decades, sales of Diesel — which Rosso founded in 1978 and grew from a denim specialist into a multibillion dollar lifestyle giant — enjoyed double-digit growth, driven largely by the success of its premium denim offering and irreverent, controversial marketing.