"Do you happen to know who’s that?” a Japanese friend asked me at last January’s Pitti fair trade as we walked past the stand of the Brunello Cucinelli cashmere clothing company. “It’s always super crowded…” he added.
My friend’s curiosity was perfectly understandable: in the last few sesons the global crisis often manifested itself at fashion fairs in lower numbers of visitors and more careful buyers, but Brunello Cucinelli’s stand at the Pitti with its fresh-faced young men and women (scions of the usual semi-aristocratic Tuscan families or sons and daughters of other entrepreneur friends?) clad in soft cashmere tops in natural shades, always looks like the proverbial yacht full of happy partying people in a sea in turmoil.
While you could argue that Cucinelli’s stand is half crowded with his own models and that his affable manners and private dinners easily guarantee him a slot on the Italian news both at the opening of fashion fairs like the Pitti and during Milan Fashion Week, it's also undeniable that his rather classic cashmere designs are still a hit with buyers.
The “Umbrian king of cashmere”, who as a young man sometimes modelled sportswear for another Umbrian maverick, friend and ellesse’s founder Leonardo Servadio, has now got even more ambitious plans as his company prepares to enter the Milan Stock Exchange on 3rd May.
The move of the Solomeo-based company follows that of Salvatore Ferragamo SpA (SFER.MI) and Prada SpA (1913.HK): the former listed its stock in Milan last June; being very popular on the Asian market, Prada chose instead to be listed in Hong Kong. Yet the trick of Cucinelli’s success (he sells worldwide through his network of flagship stores and in dedicated corners of department stores) may lie not only in his business acumen but also in his “Made in Heaven” connections.
According to some reports published on Thursday on various Italian newspapers, Cucinelli called Franciscan Capuchin Catholic Priest Father Raniero Cantalamessa to take part in the Board of Directors of his company. It sounded somehow unlikely that Cantalamessa - whose extensive biography includes teaching at and directing the Department of Religious Sciences at the Catholic University of Milan, preaching to the Papal Household, and a rather long stint as presenter of a weekly program about the Gospel on the first channel of the Italian state television - would have had time for a board of directors. Indeed further reports highlighted that Cucinelli had actually asked his confessor Father Cassiano to enter the Board of Directors together with Candice Koo (senior executive at Hermès), Matteo Marzotto (textile tycoon, current owner of Vionnet) and Andrea Pontremoli (Dallara Automobili CEO/Barilla Board Member).
Born in Massachussets, Calsian Folson – Father Cassiano – is refounder and current prior of the monastery of Saint Benedict in Norcia and topped the “People of 2011”chart compiled by the magazine 'Inside the Vatican'. Cucinelli often claimed that his company is founded on ethical principles and quality of labour, this is the main reason why he opted for his confessor in the board of directors.
Cassiano wouldn’t be the first person somehow connected to the Vatican inside a fashion-related company: footwear company Geox boasts in its Board of Directors Joaquín Navarro-Valls, member of the Opus Dei and previous spokesperson of the Holy See who, in his role of chairman of the ethics committee, apparently helped drafting the Geox code of ethics (so does that mean that if you’re an entrepreneur you can’t really distinguish what’s ethical from what’s unethical and you need a member of the Opus Dei to help you?)
Traditionally speaking, the pomp and ceremony linked fashion and the Catholic religion: Saint Francis, the son of a wealthy cloth merchant from Assisi, may have abandoned everything to live in poverty, but centuries afterwards, Jean-Charles de Castelbajac designed the ecclesiastical robes for the late Pope, as well as rainbow-striped vestments for the bishops and the priests at the 1997 Paris World Youth Day; while Armani designed last year vestments for the Mazara del Vallo bishop.
While Cucinelli’s explanations about building a company on ethical principles are very honourable in an industry heavily relying on money and rarely respecting human rights, his choice remains rather controversial.
Seeing a clergy representative in the Board of Directors of a successful cashmere company may indeed be seen by some as Federico Fellini’s grotesque representation of the Church as a fashion runway show in his film Roma turning from satire into a bitter prophecy. Yet maybe having somebody with strong ties to the Vatican, or rather to God, in your board room is just the most sensible choice in our pretty unstable financial times. If this is the case, let’s just avoid telling the truth to Patrizio Bertelli for the time being: if Prada ever gets tired of dressing the devil, it may get strange ideas about enlisting the Pope.
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Cashmere is such a pleasant kind of stuff generally considered to be for rich people's clothes. Apparently this is not a nonsense since a company such as Cucinelli enters the Stock Market.
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