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The Company

As one of the world’s leading luxury womenswear brands, ESCADA stands for modern elegance, cool glamour, and sensual femininity. The brand, founded in 1978 by Margaretha and Wolfgang Ley, provides a distinct sense of refined quality, workmanship, and excellent fit and is characterized by color, print, and the love for detail.

Under the two product lines, ESCADA and ESCADA SPORT, the brand offers its customers a lifestyle concept for dressing, filled with everything from must-have daywear for business and leisure to glamorous evening wear. Apart from ready-to-wear, shoes and bags, the product range offers ESCADA fragrances, eyewear, watches and jewelry.

The ESCADA Group operates in 24 countries throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. With around 1,100 points of sale, ESCADA is present in 80 countries worldwide.

How It All Began

In 1978, Margaretha and Wolfgang Ley presented their first collection under the name “ESCADA & Sporty Elegance“. This event laid the foundation for a new business idea that was as simple as it was successful: the „democratization“ of elite haute couture. ESCADA offered: top quality in fabrics, fit and workmanship at affordable prices; sophisticated, imaginative design and extremely comfortable wear; a coordinate system with individual components that were perfectly color-coordinated to allow mixing & matching through several seasons.

Margaretha Ley, a former Swedish model, had a solid education in tailoring and ample experience with demanding customers. But she also had an exquisite feel for colors, a devotion to detail, and a sure sense for what many women desired - feminine elegance that doesn’t shy away from bright contrasts and striking elements. Bold color combinations, opulent embroideries, combinations of patterns, and leopard prints endowed ESCADA’s early creations with a touch of irrepressible joie de vivre. This fashion style was exactly in tune with the extroverted spirit of the 1980s.