Powerful women

Rose Marcario

2006: she left a high-flying private equity job to go to India and restore herself following a burnout.

2007: she said that “the business world’s addiction to quarterly earnings was suicidal.”

2008: she joined Patagonia.

In 2020 she stepped down as CEO to “focus on the next steps in making systematic change to corporate benefit to the world”, especially leveraging technology and media.

She is also promoting the idea that “if capitalism is serving multiple stakeholders, then I think it can be compassionate. Then you care about your employees, you care about your suppliers, you care about your community, it’s different than just caring what your earnings per share is. That’s not going to lead you to a good long-term effect.2

And that …
“And we can do it! I ran a business that’s a really successful business by any indicator…and we were doing a lot of good in the world”

She took the green brand to almost 1 billion $ revenues and she launched the infamous campaign “Don’t buy this jacket”.

She could make the perfect CEO for a big brand in fashion aiming at being sustainable, walking the talk.
Will she?

Luxury Industry Neglects Women 

Take the Deloitte “Global Powers of Luxury Goods 2019” report and give a look at the top 50 best luxury companies. Only 3 of them are headed by women: Tory Burch, Miuccia Prada, Ferragamo CEO Micaela Le Divelec. Two of them are founders. The only one recruited is the latter (kudos to Ferragamo!).

Women are often confined in the least powerful roles in fashion: design, communication and HR.

Despite the fact that most part of the offer of the industry is dedicated to women.

In 2015 the New York Times published an article about “In Luxury, the Female Factor”. It mentioned several women promoted CEO like Isabelle Guichot, Liza Montague, Patricia Barbizet, Sarah Crook.

It said “Female chief executives also have historically been few and far between, despite a recent spate of high-profile appointments.

But there are signs that this is one industry-defining trend that may no longer be in vogue.”

Those who were mentioned have been rapidly replaced by men.

Recently Barbara Calò was promoted at Marni replacing the CEO Stefano Biondo, but she just scored a less powerful job title of Managing Director.

Luxury Brands work on Stereotyped Women

Recently Mary Fellowes, celebrities stylist of Olivia Colman and Scarlett Johansson, said to the Daily Mail online that the fashion industry ignores middle-aged women.

‘They are its biggest users, women with something to say for themselves, with money to spend,’ she cries. But so much of the industry still seems to be designed for tall, thin young women.”

“‘Grown-up women aren’t interested in logos and street sportswear, but the big luxury brands are putting all that out there, for the customers who aspire to be the likes of the Kardashians and the Hadids, who don’t represent their customers at all”.

It’s a pity that such a relevant part of the industry customers are neglected.

And it’s a shame that women do not have space and voice in the sancta sanctorum of the brands.

In its article “When Women are On Board, Men are less Overconfident”, the Harvard Business Review points out that:

“One benefit of having female directors on the board is a greater diversity of viewpoints, which is purported to improve the quality of board deliberations, especially when complex issues are involved, because different perspectives can increase the amount of information available.

At the same time, research has found that female directors tend to be less conformist and more likely to express their independent views than male directors because they do not belong to old-boy networks.

So a board with female directors might be more likely to challenge the CEO and push him to consider a wider range of options, as well as pros and cons, when making strategic firm decisions.

This could then attenuate CEO overconfidence and correct for potentially biased beliefs.”

So, will Women Save Fashion?

Very likely they started a new silent trend: niche brands, excellence, style, elegance and the cool factor.

Brands like The Row, Gabriela Hearst and the upcoming Phoebe Philo project are taking women on a different road compared to the tacky and flashy styles of most of the brands.

It was called timeless elegance once. Now it’s the come back in style.

We live in times where people are sensitive about their ethnic symbols and icons.

This led to headaches for #fashion brands such as Prada, Christian Dior Couture, Carolina Herrera and Gucci (among many others) accused to take advantage for business purposes or to mocking specific cultural groups through the launch of products seen as offensive or unrespectful and have been forced to apologize and support the upset groups publicly instead.

The feeling from outside was the one of a messy situation started in good faith and rapidly degenerated in hardly manageable scandal leaving every party upset.

Then Kim Kardashian decided to launch a new line of shape wear very in line with her own brand DNA. She went for a naming quite uncanny and not so linked to the products: : “Kimono”.

A rise of prompt criticism from social media pushed the hashtag #KimOhNo (clever, isn’t it?), the mayor of the city of Kyoto addressed a letter to her asking to rethink the name of the brand. She eventually decided to accept the remarks and choose another name for her collection.

Couldn’t it be the best free campaign for a collection aiming to reach the highest visibility?

Timely, clear and helpful. Fortuitous?

Yesterday Maria Grazia Chiuri presented an amazingly chic Haute Couture collection inspired by “Caryatids: These sculptures embodying female forms that support the architecture of ancient temples and decorate certain Parisian edifices, draped in tunics with pure lines, have always shouldered the weight of the world.⁠” as stated by the Maison.

The show set was created by powerful artist Penny Slinger who said “I wanted to be my own muse. And I wanted to confound the whole principle that I saw throughout the history of art which was really based very much around the man using the woman as a muse so she becomes the subject bu in an objectified way”.

They built the set in the Maison Dior and the result was a dark, powerful and energetic black witch project that focuses on women inner strength.

Maria Grazia passion and talent was acknowledged yesterday with the Legion d’Honneur given to her for all her accomplishements in fashion.

She said she’s been lucky in her life. It’s true.
But luck has also to be cultivated and talent has to be nurtured.
She is also so generous that she is paving the way for the next generations of women spreading a very supportive message.

“Be your own muse”

The DNA of a luxury brand is one of its most precious assets.

It represents the backbone of the brand, its uniqueness, its point of differentiation and it nurtures the brand value.