Outside is dark. Winter is knocking at the doors. Fog is winding through the streets on the notes of “The Dark Side of the Moon”. This is the week in which everyone wants to be a Goth. But how to? How can one actually pretend to be so, even for one night? And what does it mean? Is it still a contemporary style? Everything started at the end of the Seventies, in the train of the Punk Era. Many of the so called Post-Punk music bands found the headquarter in the just opened Batcave nightclub in London, developing a social music movement and a new dress code characterising it. So,…
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A chat over dinner with Alberto Baldan, CEO of La Rinascente
You may think that I am exaggerating, and to some extent it is true. I did not dine privately with Mr Baldan, but this is how the evening felt like to me. When I saw the event promoting a tasty aperitivo with the CEO of the most famous department store in Italy, I thought of one of those networking events where the guest awkwardly speaks for 5 minutes and then has to rush away. But I couldn’t be more wrong: organised by Hub Giovani, a group of inspired young students and professionals who get together to discuss about work, culture, innovation and much more, the aperitivo with Baldan was so enjoyable…
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Il Nuovo Gucci: in the Backstage of the Italian Empire’s Rebirth.
We’re in December 2014, and the mutli-brand luxury group Kering announces the departure of Patrizio di Marco and Frida Giannini, respectively Gucci’s CEO and artistic director. This wave of departures from Gucci comes as no surprise, and marks the beginning of a fresh start for the Florentine brand. Set up in 1921 by Guccio Gucci and acquired in 1999 by the ancestor of Kering, PPR, the double G brand was, at the time, going through a rough patch. 2013 has proved to be a downturn in the brand’s sales, a situation that worsened in 2014, with lower sales volume of 1.8% at 3,49 billion euros. Considering that Gucci is the…
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The Luxury Market Spectator: LVMH
(DISCLAIMER: The purpose of this article is merely to illustrate the performance of a luxury company that I care about. I’m not a market guru, manage your money wisely.) When I buy a bag, I try to expiate my sins (and to forget the negative balance on my bank account) by convincing myself that I’ve made a good investment which is going to last. But you know what? Why don’t’ you make a real fashionable investment buying a stock – of a luxury company, of course? The company I’m analyzing today is LVMH. Decrypting the acronym, Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy. The company, given its fame, doesn’t even need an introduction, but…
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The Fashion Industry in the Great White North
As many of you might already know, I am Canadian and so proud to represent my country abroad and in Italy. There are so many great things our country has, however when you think of Canada you don’t link it to fashion, why? Well, on my flight back to Canada last week I had a ton of delays aka loads of time to finally catch up on some great reads and I came across this great article in The Financial Post called “Why Fashion Brand Success Stories are so Few and Far Between in Canada”. That’s when it really hit me, yes nobody in Italy would ever think that Canada…
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LVMHxBOCCONI Spring 2016
If you are a Bocconian, your geolocation can oscillate around piazza Straffa for the whole day. Looking for a place in the library for fifteen minutes makes sense, as well as having no time for studies because of studies. However, in spite of all the hard times we share times of pride. As part of the cooperation program between Università Bocconi, ESSEC and LVMH the last couple of days our university hosted the “LVMH days”. The main event of the program was the inauguration held on the 16th of March. Toni Belloni, the Group Managing Director, started off with the introduction of LVMH (though the 78-billion-worth conglomerate does not seem…
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The Difference Between Style And Fashion.
“Fashion fades style is eternal” Yves Saint Laurent Every season we are spectators of the newest creations from our beloved stylists. We know new radical trends, colors and shapes. We see models, literally rocking the runway wearing the latest must have, that we’ll probably never have. We stare at this wearable and enchanting creativity, that comes and goes away on the catwalk in few seconds. This is fashion.
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A Conversation With Two Neapolitan Excellences
The 8th of March, BS4F had the great honour to host at Bocconi University two successful Italian entrepreneurs: Luciano Cimmino and Fabio Attanasio. Luciano Cimmino, Pianoforte Holding’s chairman, started working for his father as an agent and after many years of apprenticeship decided to set up his first own business: Original Marines. However, due to the difficult relationship with the other founders, Cimmino decided to leave the company and to start another project, founding the well-known lingerie brand Yamamay. In 2001 the company started with a single store in Milan, but in only two years the number of stores grew to 50 all over Italy, reaching 1000 shops all over the World…
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A Round Table in Fashion: Moschino, Startuppers and a New Book.
Barbara Nicolini and Paola Occhipinti are not just two names written on the cover of the latest book about working in fashion, but they were also the reason of an outstanding gathering of interesting figures working in the industry: Beatrice De Grandi, a young and bold entrepreneur in the fashion e-commerce, Tom & Bart, the creative spirits behind Les Hommes, Corrado Masini, the CEO of Moschino, Jean Luc Battaglia, Managing Director for C&A Italy, Valeria Vantaggi from Vanity Fair, Adriana Zerboni, headhunter, Luisa Sarpi, Gianfranco Ferrè ex première and the two creators of Le Pandorine bags. Not to mention the authors themselves, respectively a fashion & luxury headhunter and journalist…
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5 Things You Didn’t Know About Vaniday.
When I moved to Milan, I strove for finding a decent beauty salon at a student-pocket price. Moreover, when I detected the one I perceived as a good trade-off, getting a slot in their appointments agenda seemed incredibly hard. Some weeks ago, I decided to download Vaniday, the new booking service for wellness and beauty services, and this is what I found out.
