“We want to distinguish ourselves on a different level from our competitors. We try our best to be a company that has a soul and has a heart.” – A. Panconesi
Andrea Panconesi is the founder, merchandiser and mastermind behind the world-famous fashion retailer, LuisaViaRoma. He’s a third-generation retailer, having grown up with the brand that started with his grandmother, who designed and sold hats in the 1800’s.
Raised in the family business, Andrea took over LuisaViaRoma with a vision to keep the company on the forefront of an ever-evolving fashion and retail industry. Headquartered in Florence, LuisaViaRoma is a destination in itself, a place to find a mix of designers from around the world, including Balenciaga, Saint Laurent, Balmain, Givenchy, Alanui, Rhude, and Brock Collection.
In addition to offering designer fashions in a competitive industry, LuisaViaRoma decided early on to sponsor and hosts star-studded events, including the recent 2022 LuisaViaRoma x Unicef Gala, this year held in Capri, Italy.
The fundraiser summer gala, which is now in its sixth year, always brings together a host of Hollywood’s brightest stars alongside top models and creators.
The 2022 gala took place at the historic La Certosa di San Giacomo and hosted by Jamie Foxx with an auction headed up by Simon de Pury that raised more than eight million euros for Ukrainian and Syrian relief efforts. Every year, a performer takes the stage – this time headlined by Jennifer Lopez.
Andrea Panconesi (founder) and Alessandra Rossi (CEO) attend the photocall at the LuisaViaRoma for … [+]
Among those who walked the red carpet were creators like Blake Gray, Khaby Lame and Alexis Ren. Along with a mix of well known celebrities like Vanessa Hudgens, Casey Affleck, Jared Leto, Leonardo DiCaprio, Michael Kors and Natasha Poly. The afterparty arranged by Richie Akiva and Darren Dzienciol was headlined by Diplo and Dj Cruz.
During the LuisaViaRoma x Unicef Gala weekend, Panconesi along with the new CEO Alessandra Rossi and Editor-in-Chief Kate Davidson Hudson took a moment to talk about the history and the future of LuisaViaRoma, their creator strategy from the early days until now, passion economy and how partnering with UNICEF (United Nations International Children’s Fund) has been a win-win.
Gustaf Lundberg Toresson: What do you remember most about the beginnings of LuisaViaRoma and how the brand started?
Andrea Panconesi: Fashion, for me, is my passion. This (LuisaViaRoma) was opened by my grandmother in France in the end of the 1800’s. Her name was Luisa and she was French, and my grandfather worked with the store, too. When my mother was very, very little, they moved to Italy and as she grew up and met my father, they bought the store. So, then my grandmother and mother were both operating it and it grew a little bigger.
When I was 18, I took over the little shop because I thought it was easy. It was not my dream. I would have liked to be an architect and was much more about architecture or interior design. But my father was in the building, so I took over the little shop. Although I was born with it, I got into it.
In Florence during that time there were maybe five shops and fashion was just taking hold. We all sold the same things, we were stocking and selling what they were selling. It’s changed now. We branched out and added more designers and distinguished ourselves from the rest.
Lundberg Toresson: You took the brand online in 1999, which was in the early days of e-commerce. How did you know it was the right time to start online retail?
Panconesi: I didn’t know it was the right time. I didn’t know anything about it. I was collaborating with a technology guy who was running our administration and one day he came to me and said, ‘my young son wants to talk to you.’ He wanted to open a site for me.
I didn’t know what he was talking about and I had no idea what e-commerce was. At that time I only had clients of the physical store. We would send them pictures of different collections through fax. At that time Google was in beta form. Facebook didn’t’ exist. But we did it, and so it started.
E-commerce made everything much easier and as soon as I understood that, I hired engineers from the university to put in writing and computing what I was already doing. It was a natural development to what I was already doing.
Now we are in the 78th season and we are working on the same system that I started 35 years ago.
Kate Davidson Hudson, Editor-In-Chief of LuisaViaRoma’s media arm – a core element in the … [+]
Lundberg Toresson: And how did you get started with creators in the beginning? What did it look like when you started?
Panconesi: In the beginning it was kids, young kids that were talented and fashion oriented that invented a new job. Most of them were photographing themselves with a partner or a boyfriend, so it was just a two-person business.
They were just starting out, so they had no chance to go to different brands to get clothes to get photographed, so we decided to help them out. We had the chance to have all the collections in the very beginning, we were lucky to be delivered before anybody else in the world.
We’d already had the collections coordinated and were already editing all the clothes, pairing different selections with accessories, with shoes and so-on. So, for them, it was a good chance to see it in display. We’d close the store for three days and they could choose whatever they wanted. We provided them models and photographers in case they needed it and they could choose whatever they wanted. And the collection was already edited, not like going into a warehouse where everything is happening.
Lundberg Toresson: You’ve had a lot of experiences around the brand since them and now we’re in Capri with the LuisaViaRoma x Unicef event. Why participate in the Unicef event and what do you see as a return on an event like this for the brand?
Panconesi: We are strong believers in the younger generation. They’re very sensible and careful of what they buy and where they buy it from. We try to develop a good face of fashion and make people aware of what happens in the world. And we do our best to contribute.
It’s a win-win collaboration for us and I get to concentrate on fashion and strategy, which is what I like. We don’t want to compete in terms of numbers with others, we want to distinguish ourselves on a different level. So, we do our best to be a company that has soul and heart.
We started partnering with Unicef because of my daughter, who is the mother of two children, my grandchildren. She asked me one day if we could get involved in a foundation for children. I didn’t know anything about that and didn’t know where to start but we decided to do it and to partner with someone who could do it better than us. That’s how I started doing the Unicef gala.
We did five summer galas and now we are in the sixth. We’ve raised more than millions, which, for Italy, is a huge amount. We are very proud of it and I think it’s good for us. It’s good for our soul and our ego to be a partner with an institution like Unicef.
They operate in 190 countries in the world. So, thanks to them, we get the chance to position ourselves out of the crowd of our competitors, which are much bigger than us. In the end, we all sell the same fashion, we all sell the same thing.
Lundberg Toresson: And so now, you’ve brought in Alessandra Rossi as CEO just this past fall. Alessandra, how will you be able to continue the mission to set LuisaViaRoma apart from the rest and continue to grow the brand?
Alessandra Rossi: So, my mission is to free up time for Andrea to do what he does best – be creative. I’ve always thought LuisaViaRoma was always ahead of everyone else and was always inventing something new. But, I understand that you can get stuck in daily operations of a company and so I see it as a challenge to add to the talent and value that’s already existing and free Andrea up to do more. I’m sure there’s a way to complete the current team with new talent, especially exposing it a little bit more with international audiences to keep the company growing.
We want to keep our leadership position in the Italian market and grow our international reach. Our target consumer is a younger consumer, but still very sophisticated and glamorous. That’s in our DNA. We believe in long-term strategies and engaging with that younger, but sophisticated audience. That’s what our brands are asking of us.
And the younger consumer does engage with content on the e-commerce site more than the general consumer, so there’s a focus on growing our e-commerce and on using social media to stay at the forefront of our industry.The next frontier is the U.S.
Kate Davidson Hudson: Obviously the brand equity in Europe is already there, but there’s not as much brand recognition in the U.S. So, there’s a focus on growing that, too. When I started, the penetration of business between Canada and the U.S. was only 12%. Over the last year we’ve grown that to 22%
Andrea Panconesi, Alessandra Rossi and Kate Davidson Hudson interviewed by Gustaf Lundberg Toresson … [+]
GLT: Alessandra and Kate, how did the idea behind launching in the US start?
Rossi and Davidson Hudson: Even before I came along the US was always the next place that Andrea wanted to expand and make the brand recognizable there too. When I started, the penetration of their business between Canada and the US was only 12% and we were able to raise that to 22% over the last year. But media is the way to go in the US so it made sense to launch a media campaign to improve the brand recognition and it was launched September 2021. We shot Katy Perry and she was the first LVR girl and we chose her because she seems very empowered and because of her very diverse fashion dialect.
Lundberg Toresson: Kate, you’re the Editor in Chief for LVR’s media arm. In your own words, why arrange an event like this?
Davidson Hudson: I personally have a high expectation of the ROI there but like Andrea said, a lot of the buys are derivative across the multibrand channels. But so far fashion is an emotional buy and I think there is a lot of intangible value that they get in return from these type of activations and I also think it just adds to that intangible, sexy, fun, cool factor that keeps and builds the brand’s equity.
Lundberg Toresson: How is social media and e-commerce playing into the future of LuisaViaRoma?
Davidson Hudson: I think social commerce is obviously hugely compelling, finding the synergies between storytellers and our product assortment, and using them and their points of view to filter and add into our product assortment. That’s really compelling.
And there’s the runway to reality transition that I love. On the runway you have the perfect girl and the perfect look with the designers there and perfect hair and makeup. That’s not attainable in reality.
Content creators are powerful because they’re translating that in really creative and innovative ways. We can integrate their point of view into our content and to our platform and that makes it interesting. It creates an experience, especially for the younger generation. They barely watch TV anymore. It’s all TikTok and YouTube and all of that is personality driven.
The conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
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