How Brunello Cucinelli’s daughters are future proofing the brand
Brunello Cucinelli is one of Italy’s most famous luxury brands. His two daughters talk ‘guardianship,’ that Emily in Paris scene and why they prefer ‘gentle’ to ‘quiet’ luxury.
Carolina and Camilla Cucinelli have laid out their office to be somewhat reminiscent of their childhood bedroom.
“We always had a beautiful relationship together … we slept together in the same bed. And now we translate this idea to have the same office, tables together very close,” says Carolina, laughing on a Zoom call with WISH. She is, indeed, sitting close to her sister. Both of them are impeccable in Brunello Cucinelli double denim. “My sister is kind of my shoulder; the person I want to share my life; the person that I want to protect forever,” she continues. “And, of course, to be two sisters, two women behind a very strong man is also a good thing because there is someone who can understand completely the situation and we can help each other.”
Understanding their father, Italian cashmere king Brunello Cucinelli, who founded his eponymous label in 1978 with an assortment of coloured jumpers, is essential to understanding the business. The sisters are both co-head creative directors (Camilla of womenwear) and vice-presidents of the Brunello Cucinelli brand (Cucinelli himself remains its creative director and executive chairman). It is a business unlike any other. This is not only because it is currently defying a global luxury downturn, posting growth of 12.4 per cent to record a revenue of €1.28 billion ($2.25 billion) in 2024. Or even because its super-luxurious fabrics and discreet design codes have become the ultimate signifier of “If you know, you know” fashion and yes, quiet luxury – although, more on that later.
Rather it’s the philosophical underpinnings of Brunello Cucinelli, the man and the business, that make it unique. After all, Cucinelli is someone who believes in “humanistic capitalism” and who has in the course of 25 years restored and renovated the Umbrian township of Solomeo.
The picturesque medieval village houses the company headquarters and manufacturing facilities, and here Cucinelli has also built a school with free tuition for studies in such things as literature, gardening and, of course, tailoring, as well as a theatre and a library. In essays published on the Brunello Cucinelli website and in interviews, the brand founder muses on the work of philosopher Immanuel Kant, of Renaissance scholars and Roman architects. All of this informs his views on how people should be treated (well, and with respect) and the true meaning of luxury. Entirely related to this, the brand is also famous for its hospitality. Its events for press, clients and guests in the village, where platters of pasta are served with drizzles of Cucinelli’s own olive oil alongside wine from his vineyards, are legendary. This sun-drenched conviviality was captured in the third season of Emily in Paris when the plucky American marketing executive finds herself in the picturesque village owned by a cashmere dynasty. Darren Star, the executive producer and creator of the Netflix series, has been a guest of Solomeo.
Camilla says they were bombarded with messages the day the episode aired. “We are very close friends with Darren and his team. They take part in our events … We are honoured to have been chosen as an inspiration,” she says.
Solomeo is critical to the family’s philosophy of living well. As Camilla points out, since the restoration of the village, its population has shot up from 200 to 800. Life, she says, is good here. There is a focus on arts and culture, and contrary to previous generations, she says younger people – themselves included – want to stay. The Cucinelli sisters, their husbands and children all live close to each other and to Camilla and Carolina’s parents, Brunello and Federica Cucinelli. Work chat, by the way, is banned during family time.
“This is one of the first rules that Dad established the first time we stepped in to join the company,” says Camilla. “He said, ‘What is in the office must stay in the office and out of office, we do not talk business’. We don’t talk business at family lunch on a Sunday, too. It is forbidden.”
Both love the quiet, and community, of life in the village.
“Our family basically wants to live here because there is a better quality of life, there is a slower pace, it is less frantic,” says Camilla.
“Also the idea of support is very strongly perceived in a village because my father and we together say that there is no economic or spiritual poverty in a village because there’s always someone who is willing to help to reach out if anybody needs a hand.
“We decided to stay here, to make our lives here with our families so that our children could have the very same experience. They could roam around feeling free and protected at the same time.”
Both sisters take much inspiration from their entrepreneurial father – in both life and business. They grew up practically swaddled in the famous cashmere on which Brunello Cucinelli built its name, spending time with the craftspeople who work for the brand.
“I spent part of my day after school in the company where our father and our mother were, and we started to create just little items for our dolls because the artisans that worked with us taught us to sew and taught us to work by hand. It was a beautiful moment that the artisan transmitted us the passion for this job,” says Carolina.
One of their father’s most enduring legacies is about how to treat people.
“We think that one of the most important lessons that our father gave us was to always care of your neighbour, of your next person,” says Carolina.
“He taught us attention towards the people who work with us and also a lot of respect for the place where we live, for the community in general.”
The idea of succession then, for a company such as this, is more a question of “guardianship” of what has been built.
“We grew up and we were sort of born and bred with the idea that we are not the owners of the company, but rather we are some sort of temporary transient guardians that look after the company and its surroundings,” says Carolina.
The family’s commitment to upholding the values central to the brand from its beginnings, says Camilla, remain steadfast.
“This is important because the family is involved and this is one of the main values and this is our commitment and our husbands’ commitment,” she says.
“And every day we want to point out that we are here, we like to work here, we like to build the future.”
The sisters are quick to compliment the other’s strengths. Recently the pair completed their most personal project for the brand to date, the design of an entirely new bag for Brunello Cucinelli, the BC Duo. It is the first bag they have created for the brand.
The bag, says Camilla, speaks to their “ideal woman”, the kind of woman who – like them, like most working women – has a lot on her plate. The softly structured tote is intended to be worn every day, is stitched by hand in both calfskin and suede, comes in four sizes and can be folded inwards to become more compact.
“This bag speaks about the brand and it speaks about our vision of us, too,” says Camilla. It also talks to how the pair think about younger clients, and what they want. Which is, they believe, to know where and how the product is made, and the quality of raw materials. Winning over the next generation, adds Carolina, is about finding those who align with the philosophy of Brunello Cucinelli.
“[It is] this idea of a balanced life between business and personal life, of respect for the surroundings,” she says. “They feel they want to belong to a concept, a vision like this … perhaps one day they will approach the product, too. What really matters to us is that we win over the new generation, even without the product. Just winning them over is a great achievement for us.”
Back to that idea of quiet luxury, Brunello Cucinelli has, of late, become the unofficial ambassador for a non-ostentatious and yet unrivalled type of luxury. Both sisters, however, prefer the term “gentle” luxury instead.
“Everything started immediately after the pandemic. When there was this buzzword, it was all the rage, this word, this ‘quiet luxury’, this definition. But actually, when we as a brand think about luxury, what comes to mind is a woman who is fully aware of the value of the garments, of the accessories, of everything that she’s wearing,” says Camilla.
Also, as she points out, there’s hardly anything “quiet” about a handknit that costs $10,000. But there certainly is something special about pieces made by hand, with great care, in the best possible way.
“‘Gentle’ luxury is better for our kind of communication, everything that pertains to our brand where we basically focus on really having a lot of care for how our artisans work,” she says.
“We always dote on our full Italian supply chain, [people need] to get fair wages and the attention towards the environment and the people and also making garments and products that endure over time.”
After all, time – how one uses and cherishes it – is entwined with the philosophies of Brunello Cucinelli. For now, and the next generation.
This story is from the July issue of WISH.
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