the ascensional winds of the
moment.
I am emotionally tied to the
concept of the eagle, with its
elegance. The eagle stands for a
sense of strength and control.
Q5. When it comes the
management of your
company, you recruited
both of your sons Niccolò,
who is the CEO, and Flilippo
who is the Creative Director
to continue the brand and
the family legacy. How do
you feel about a second
generation running the
company now?
Italian fashion cannot disregard
its origins; it must respect the
passage of knowledge between
generations.
It was a shared path. Once they
finished university, both confirmed
their desire to join and take part in
the company’s operations. They
arrived with direct experience,
gained over the years by
spending time in the world of fairs
and directly curating relationships
with some selected clients.
Both had the chance to
collaborate alongside my
team at work. They gained
experience abroad in a
department store and,
in the end, entered the
company, naturally finding
their places.
To work with them is a
constant incentive to
improve. They have
the expertise and the
capacity to analyze
and understand the
international market and
network of relationships. I
must say that if it were not
for this perspective, as I
mentioned before, I would
have accepted one of
the offers that had been
presented to me by the
luxury giants. Working with
Niccolò and Filippo means,
however, working with a group
of managers who are relatively
young, who have grown up within
my company.
Q6. In your mind, how do you
describe ‘luxury’? And what
does luxury mean to you?
In the early 1970s, when I
founded my company, the
term ‘luxury’ was primarily used
in reference to top residences,
legendary cars, and even as a
protagonistic word for fine jewelry.
Still, there were no authoritative
references for this term in the
fashion world, least of all in men’s
clothing. There was, however, talk
of tailoring and manufacturing.
Not as it happens today, but
it was limited to a form of
education for some families - at
most, some had personal tailors.
When I started working on my
first collection of ties, in 1972, I
decided to focus on a quality,
100% Made in Italy product,
referring to a market segment
that did not yet exist - a niche.
Luxury is a detail, a nuance, a
particular type of work that is only
possible to achieve by hand.
Luxury is an attitude, a belonging.
Of course, it is much easier to sell
a product from the high street
market. But the difference, for
those who understand it, exists,
and it is visible. This is not just a
label or marketing; it is content.
Luxury is… arts and craftsmanship,
limited in production and
distribution, made by specialists.
Where there is research in
everything from the fabrics, and
history behind them. Luxury is a
term that, in recent years, has
often been abused to express
a cost that goes far beyond the
actual value of a commercial
object. Luxury, for me, is an
emotion: like a glass of water in
the desert, a smell of excellency,
and a real friend.
Polo De’Marco July 2020