luxury / Conglomerates

Luca De Meo’s appointment as the French group’s chief executive is an admission of the seriousness of the crisis the company is facing, as well as a signal of its intent to do something about it, writes Imran Amed.

The luxury goods maker is reeling from a sharp downturn in the €364 billion industry — and questions about succession are growing louder.

The Gucci and Saint Laurent owner is splitting its chairman and CEO roles, bringing in Luca de Meo, a turnaround expert who has revived multiple automotive brands, to support the Pinault family.

In a rare in-depth interview, the Dior chief executive talks to BoF’s Imran Amed about the logic for hiring Anderson to oversee both the men’s and women’s sides of the business and how the French mega-brand plans to recapture customers amid a sharp downturn in the luxury sector.

The Italian designer in charge of Dior’s womenswear is leaving the LVMH-owned megabrand after a transformative nine-year tenure during which sales quadrupled before being hit hard by a sharp downturn in luxury demand.

A string of acquisitions piled up debts just as the industry entered a prolonged slump. Now, those debts are getting harder to manage.

If there was ‘beautiful confusion’ in the mix of cruise and couture the powerhouse designer paraded in Rome on Tuesday night, the standing ovation at the end of the show left little doubt she was saying goodbye to Dior after a transformational near-decade tenure and hello to her next act, resurrecting the storied Teatro della Cometa.

LVMH and Hermès stock fell about 3 percent and 4 percent respectively, in line with sector peers including Kering, Prada and Burberry, after the US president announced a 50 percent duty on imports from the European Union.