the art of being italian

8/13/2019 The Art of Being Italian

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59November-December 2013

VICE-CHAIRM AN GIOVANNA FERRAGAMOhas a smile that

spreads across her face, and eyes that twinkle with a hint of

mischief. She looks across the room at Massimiliano Giornetti, the

firms creative director, and asks me: He is nice? She pauses as I

nod in agreement having just interviewed him then continues:

He is friendly, warm and approachable, very unusual for

designers.

We are sitting in comfortable surroundings in Forte dei Marmi, a

small town near Florence, with the mountains of Tuscany toweringover us in regal surreal glory. I have been invited to spend an

afternoon with members of the family and the brands leading

designer ahead of the launch of the latest Ferragamo perfume.

There are no airs and graces about Giovanna, despite her being

the daughter of the legendary Salvatore

Ferragamo. She looks at Giornetti fondly for amoment and then turns to me and says: Ask me

many questions. It is just you and me now.

The Tuscan-based brand has seen a

phenomenal rise in revenues and profits this year,

after demand from the Asia-Pacific area helped lift

its 2012 net profits by 30 percent to 106 million

euros ($137 million). Its yet another indication of

the resilience top luxury brands have shown

during the economic slowdown in Europe, helped

by demand from wealthy tourists from emerging

markets.According to Bloomberg, Ferragamos recent

growth spurt is largely due to markets on the

perimeter such as Indonesia, Vietnam and

especially China, where Ferragamo has doubled its number of stores

to about 66. In just a few years the Asia-Pacific region has become

the largest contributor to Ferragamos revenues (36 percent), maybe

not surprisingly since Goldman Sachs has predicted that China will

consume about 29 percent of the worlds total luxury goods by 2015,

surpassing Japan as the worlds top luxury brands market.

But according to Milton Pedraza, CEO of the New York-based

researcher, Luxury Institute LLC, the reason for Ferragamos higherrevenues is not just booming demand for luxury goods in developing

countries but also its great product line-up, the culture of the brand,

and how it builds relationships that allow it to gain greater

market share.

CLASSIC TONEVice-chairman

Giovanna Ferragamodoes not take an

active role indesigning the

creations now butdoes oversee the

process.

The Art of Being Italian

BY SINDHU NAIR

Ferragamo seems to have it all: heritage,Made in Italy exclusivity, and now impressive

inancial results. T Qatar meets the personalitiesbehind the brand.

On Heritage

Arena Qatar

IMAGECOURTSEY:FER

RAGAMO


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60 T Qatar: The New York Times Style Magazine

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Pedraza acknowledges that the companys 2011 initial

public offering (IPO) gave the company more resources to

invest in stores across Asia, but feels that family traditions

and values were and are still the brands most powerful

marketing tool.

Ferragamo is a very consumer-centric brand, he

says, a brand that knows its consumer extremely well,with a deep-rooted relation with consumers one main

reason for the consistent success of the brand.

Giovanna Ferragamo would argue that coherence and

trust are among the values Ferragamo stands for. We

have always been very careful to be in touch with our

roots, says Giovanna. We have been very strict in our

principles of workmanship and credibility; and the brand

is synonymous with absolute integrity.

When Giovannas father Salvatore began his

shoemaking career a century ago, he was so passionate

and detail-oriented about his craft that he spent timestudying the anatomy of the foot, so as to be able to

produce the very best footwear, comfortable as well as

attractive.

Sixty-nine-year-old Giovanna, unlike her surviving

siblings, all of whom were very small when their father

passed away in 1960, has some memories of him.

He was the one to push me into the fashion arena, very

demanding in certain aspects of work while being open in

others, she says.

He shared a wonderful relation with his workmen,

Giovanna goes on. They were more like family. He usedto respect each person and felt that each one of them had

an important link to the end product and the brand.

While Salvatore made the brand famous with his iconic

shoes, other family members expanded the group to

include ready-to-wear, perfumes,

jewelry, leather goods and watches.But all of this was part of a bigger

plan.

My father was always telling us,

when all of you join the company, we will expand into

more countries and make so many more new products,

says Giovanna. He was already well known in the U.S. He

traveled a lot to Australia, to Japan and just before he

died he was studying the anatomy of the Asian feet. He

was open to expansion and was already planning for this.

I started the ready-to wear collection; my sister

opened the accessory line; and then we opened the mensline, she recounts. Each one of us, as we joined the

company, was expanding in new areas. The group has

grown a lot. Giovanna has stepped back from her

designing days she led the design team from the 1960s

to the 90s but she still oversees the creative side of

things. I enjoyed my time when I was doing it, she

HEIRLOOMAnevent held by

SalvatoreFerragamo in

honour of SophiaLoren, Rome,

February 25,1935.

THEN AND NOWClockwise from far left:The Ferragamo familywith Salvatore,the

creator of the brand; amodel walkingSalvatore FerragamosA/W mens collection;the whole Ferragamofamily.

IMAGESCOURTESY,FE

RRAGAMO,BANCADATIARCHIVIO,PHOTOGRAPHBYLOCCHIFIRENZE,FERRAGAMO


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61November-December 2013

remembers. Every collection was

like a test for us. There was so much

work involved, it was

very stimulating times.

With a strong and distinctive

fashion sense, Giovanna loves to mix

and match her clothes to achieve a

classic look with a twist of modernity.

Never boring though, she laughs. I always had to dressthe shoes, instead of doing it the other way around!

One most important link in the Ferragamo story is

Giovannas mother, Wanda Ferragamo. After Salvatores

death in 1960 Wanda, who had no experience of working,

was left not just to manage their five children but also to

steer this huge company, a job she seems to have done

really well. She served as the chairman of Salvatore

Ferragamo Italia S.p.A. until August 2006 and was its

director until June 2011, when the company went public.

She was clever and determined, and also passionate

about the brand her husband created, recalls Giovanna,adding: We called her The Boss.

The success of the brand is also attributed to CEO

Michele Norsa, appointed in 2006 with a 35-year track

record as executive manager of Italian family firms in

fashion (Benetton) and publishing (Rizzoli) and an IPO

for Italian fashion house Valentino under his belt. It was

Norsa who orchestrated Ferragamos IPO, selling about

22 percent of the company to fund an ambitious plan to

open 25 stores ten in China alone plus a

refurbishment of flagship stores in major world capitals

such as London and New York, according to INSEAD

Knowledge.

Norsa stressed the global importance of China when he

talked to INSEAD Knowledge this summer: Combined

with the growth of Europe and the United States, China

has become fundamental. In the next five to ten years we

will still see opportunities on the perimeter in China,

because second, third-tier Chinese cities are representing

this opportunity, he said, referring to domestic growth

within the country.

With turmoil and uncertainty in the global economy,

many observers questioned the timing of the IPO. But

Norsa and the family have proved the naysayers wrong,

with positive results over the past few years. A lot of

people were thinking that probably a new listing wouldonly happen in Asia or outside Europe. We proved there

were still opportunities for good companies, Norsa said.

The two successful IPOs, Valentino and Ferragamo, paved

the way for other Italian brands such as Brunello Cucinelli

and Moleskine to follow suit with listings on the Milan

stock exchange.

In his meeting with me, SF group president Ferruccio

Ferragamo, Giovannas brother, explains the strategic

thinking behind the IPO. We decided to go public on the

stock exchange because it seemed the most coherent

choice in terms of governance for a company such as ours,and aligned with our plans for global expansion.

Nevertheless, we decided to float the minimum

percentage of stock with the aim of keeping an absolute

majority of share capital to continue along the path of

development marked out by my family in recent years.

TOP TO BOTTOM

From top: DavidLee, SalvatoreFerragamo withmodels wearing hisinventions,Kimo,1951; left,Giovanna andFerruccioFerragamo at thelaunch of theirlatest perfume;below, Damigelle,prototype of abrocade ankle bootwith gold kid heels,created especially

for Sophie Loren,1957.

BEAUTY ANDDETAILSLeft, FreidaPinto,MassimilianoGiornetti, KarolinaKurkova at a recentevent; below,Vaporosa,prototype of a greysatin high heelpump embroideredwith pearls, silverand gold beads andrhinestone in aloral motif.


4/462 T Qatar: The New York Times Style Magazine

COURTESYOFFERRAG

AMO

While cynics carped that the IPO would sound the death knell for

Ferragamos creativity and its Made in Italy cachet, nothing

drastic has happened at all to mar the companys performance or

damage the brands Italian exclusivity. From a manufacturing point

of view, the public offering obliges us to be increasingly efficient, and

we were committed to further increasing the groups profitability,says Ferruccio, adding that it was improved operational efficiency

that led to the upturn in SFs earnings.

Being a completely Made in Italy company is a strategic choice

in which we believe wholeheartedly, a choice made by my father

when he moved to Florence in 1927, for the very reason that he found

a unique heritage of craftsmanship and production excellence here.

Nothing is left to chance at Ferragamo,

and as far as generational change is

concerned, the family has a rule that only a

maximum of three members from each new

generation can join the company. We are a

huge family, which in its fourth generation

includes more than 70 members, says

Ferruccio.

And to be able to become part of the

company is no simple inheritance that can

be taken for granted. The aspirants need

to have a masters degree, have gained two

years work experience outside the

company, and lastly pass an admission

exam conducted by members of the family

working in the company.

At present, there are two members of

the third generation in the company: my

niece, Angelica Visconti, who is Retail and

Wholesale Director for Italy, and my son

James, who is Womens Leather Products

Director, he says. Reflecting on the fact that

the brand seems to have successfully

weathered many storms, Ferruccio feels the luxury goods sector has

felt the effects of the global recession a little less than others.

Looking at todays results, luxury goods and brands such as ours

have held up better, perhaps because of our consistent, diversified

presence in all the worlds markets, he says.

And is Ferragamos design creativity also holding up in todays

global fashion market?

Creative director Massimiliano Giornetti is said to have a flair for

doing the extraordinary, after his very imaginative move to launch a

collection inside the Louvre. For someone who had a distinct flair for

architecture but later decided that fashion was the best way to

express his creativity, Giornetti certainly has come a long way in

proving his instincts right. Thirteen years with the brand, and

Giornetti feels that craftsmanship and heritage are not just what

Ferragamo is about but are also part of his own upbringing and

conviction. The brand and the designer are so intimately connected

that it seems as if they both stand for the same ideals, almost at therisk of the creator losing a bit of his own identity to keep in with the

brands DNA.

Luxury, to Giornetti, is a matter of materials research, quality and

construction, right down to achieving maximum functionality of the

final product, and also finding special precious detailing to make the

brand exclusive. Which is why this years Ferragamo collection

caused excitement with the new modern deconstructed look for

which Giornetti seems to have found a passion. Gladiator boots,

tailored trench coats, wrap skirts and brocade pants brought out the

seasons edgy trend, without losing Ferragamos classy twist and its

love for neutral colors.

Fashion has become much more democratic according toGiornetti, and everyone now has access to it, making the work of

designers much more challenging. I have to think of consumers

who live around the world, and also understand that the consumer

has changed to become more conscious, and even bold, in their

fashion statement, he declares

Luxury goods and brands such as ours have held upbetter, says Ferruccio Ferragamo, perhaps because of

our consistent, diversiied presence in allthe worlds markets.

OLD AND NEWClockwisefrom top: Satin sandal withcage heel, photographedby Lorenzo Cicconi Massifrom the Ferragamomuseum; SalvatoreFerragamo Galuchat;

shoes and dress fromSalvatore Ferragamowomens A/W14collection.

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the art of being italian

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