Renzo Rosso makes his first trousers at the age of 15 and begins to sell the jeans made to his friends, immediately showing his entrepreneurial attitude. His first work experience takes place in the laboratory of one of the leading jeans manufacturers of the time, the one of Adriano Goldschmied; After two years, in 1978, Renzo Rosso founded, together with Goldschmied, the Diesel brand.

The choice of the name falls on a word that at that time was associated with an alternative energy, a symbol of an equally alternative fashion, and that gives the idea of universality, choosing precisely a word that is pronounced in the same way throughout the world.