Although LVMH, the most lucrative luxury brand conglomerate in the world, does not detail its annual profits brand by brand, it is known that of the 86.2 billion euros billed last year, 42,169 come from its fashion brands, nor from cosmetics, neither from watchmaking nor from the sales of premium beverages. Also that the two flagships in this category (which includes brands such as Givenchy, Celine, Loewe or Fendi) are Dior, which according to HSBC bank estimates has tripled its turnover since 2017 and, above all, Louis Vuitton, which in 2022 beat the historical luxury record surpassing the 20 billion barrier. To put it in context: in fiscal 2023, Zara, the main chain of the Inditex group, had a turnover of 26,050 million, with Zara Home included in the calculation.
The Italian Pietro Beccari (Parma, 56 years old) was the architect of the Dior “miracle” together with the creative director of the brand, Maria Grazia Chiuri. As president and CEO of the firm since 2018, he not only avoided the ravages of the pandemic, but also managed to grow the brand in 2020 and 2021. And he did so, in part, by giving himself over to the spectacle, with catwalk shows behind closed doors in Italy, a huge show at the Panathenaic stadium in Athens in 2021 or the brand’s landing in the Plaza de España in Seville in 2022, in what was the first major parade of a fashion brand in Spain. “I was the one who brought Dior here,” Beccari recalls, sitting in a restaurant overlooking Barcelona’s Olympic Port. He is now, since February 2023, the president and CEO of Louis Vuitton (he has exchanged positions with Delphine Arnault, the daughter of the owner of LVMH, Bernard Arnault) and has just arrived in the city to attend the fashion show that marks the signing. most famous luxury hotel in the world celebrated last May 23 at Park Güell. “Nicolas had the last word. [Ghesquière, director creativo de la casa desde hace una década]. I told him about the possibility of doing something in Barcelona and he didn’t hesitate. We are both passionate about this city,” she explains.
Louis Vuitton has been organizing these Cruise shows for a decade, annual shows in emblematic locations in different cities around the world. Beccari says that choosing the city is not easy, “and it does not always respond to a market issue, sometimes the reasons are more cultural or aesthetic.” On this occasion, however, both factors have occurred. The firm once again sponsors the America’s Cup for sailing, a competition in which it was present from 1983 to 2017. “But in addition to that, the brand works very well here. The store on Passeig de Gràcia is the fifth in sales in all of Europe, although, if I am honest, the rest arises in an authentic and spontaneous way. The choice of Park Güell, for example, was Ghesquière’s wish. “He was clear from the beginning that, if he did something in Barcelona, he wanted to do it there,” explains the CEO. The night after this interview, more than half a thousand guests, half of them international, gathered in the emblematic park to watch the parade of the French flag. At one of the entrances, a handful of people were demonstrating against the transfer of public space to a private company, something that, however, did not happen in Seville when Dior “took over” the Plaza de España, perhaps because the city did not suffers the ravages of tourism like Barcelona. “It has not been easy. We had many conversations with Jaume [Collboni, alcalde de la capital catalana] and with the institutions until it happened. Normally the process of choosing where we are going to do these parades is based on that, on many conversations. Sometimes the person in front of you does not agree with you, it has happened to us before, but it is agreed upon. We always try to do something cultural, something that brings energy to the cities,” he explains.
In Ghesquière’s designs there were, obviously, references to Gaudí, Miró and Bofill, also Cordoban hats, ankle boots with fringes, black lace and aged leather bags; a kind of Spanish clichés passed through the avant-garde filter of the French designer. It happens with the Cruise collections of the big brands, that is, the only ones with the financial muscle to orchestrate traveling parades: all or almost all of them take as a point of inspiration the idiosyncrasy of the city in which they stop to create garments that are in the stores. from November to May, which do not know seasons and function as a more commercial attraction than the typical spring-summer and autumn-winter lines. However, unlike those of its competitors, Louis Vuitton’s Cruise shows are not usually directly linked to the glorification of local craftsmanship (as Dior’s in Seville was), but, once again, the choice of Barcelona seems to be more than justified. “We have been manufacturing here for many years. More than 30″, explains Beccari. “We opened the first leather goods factory in the nineties and the last one in 2017. Now we have five. We employ around 1,800 people. We also produce in Ubrique, of course, because there are the best leather workshops in the world, so I would say that, although we usually opt for one city or another for cultural and aesthetic reasons, in this case our history is also here.”
The Dior show in Seville was not the first time that a big brand looked to Spain to show; The same firm starred in fashion shows here in the fifties and sixties, of course, behind closed doors in front of a very select group of potential clients, as these things were done before. Now a Cruise parade of a famous brand of this type sometimes exceeds 100 million views on social networks, if only to see the arrival of the current K-pop star (there is no longer a parade without one). There are great streaming concerts with much smaller audiences. “The economic value it brings to the city is difficult to quantify, but the influence is enormous. Millions of people see it, from all countries, and many end up visiting the cities. It is a bit our mission; show local cultures to the world, that’s why they are called Cruise parades, they are trips in every sense,” he points out.
Pietro Beccari has proven to be a master at knowing how to erase the boundaries between fashion and spectacle. He himself brings up that Pharrell Williams will be attending the show tonight. He hired the rapper as men’s line director shortly after his appointment as CEO, laying the foundation for a large-scale union between design and entertainment. “We are like a diamond with many facets. There is fashion, but also music or sports. We have just launched a campaign with Nadal and Federer and in three months we will return here with the Copa América [de vela]”, account. If Louis Vuitton is the luxury brand with the most turnover in the world, it is perhaps because it has gone beyond the boundaries of fashion to integrate into those of contemporary culture: “They know us in every corner of the world, and they don’t know us because we sell gold , but because we sell success, a story of excellence and optimism. And I am of the opinion that there is no reward without sacrifice, I tell that to all my teams. We have a responsibility and we have to constantly try to surprise people.”
