Ferragamo Is Going Through A Critical Period Of Pformation. What Will Happen In The Future?

After airborne CEO, Italy

Salvatore Ferragamo is undergoing a critical period of pformation.

Founded in 1927, it is one of the global leading groups in the field of luxury goods, mainly footwear, leather products, ready-made garments, silk fabrics, accessories and men's and women's fragrances.

The products also include glasses and watches produced by licensed manufacturers.

After the departure of the original creative director, Massimiliano Giornetti, Salvatore Ferragamo appointed Paul Andrew as the top brand in November last year.

The design director, Fulvio Rigoni, is the design director for women's garments, and Guillaume Meilland is the director of men's clothing design, aiming to achieve balanced growth of all its categories.

However, the performance of the three creative directors does not seem to have a positive impact on the growth of brand performance.

According to the data, in the 6 months ended June 30th, Salvatore Ferragamo sales increased by 1.1% to 718 million euros, while net profit fell 15.4% to 76 million euros.

Among them, Salvatore Ferragamo's core footwear department sales rose 1.3% to 313 million euros compared to the same period, while the clothing sector sales recorded a 0.9% increase to 41 million 657 thousand euros.

A few days ago, Salvatore Ferragamo issued a statement announcing that due to the failure of the design of Fulvio Rigoni in the market, Paul Andrew, the creative director of brand shoes, will take over the design of women's clothing series.

Paul Andrew will be responsible for the marketing originality of all categories of branded dress products and report to chief executive Eraldo Poletto.

The 38 year old Paul Andrew was born near the Windsor Castle in England. His father has been a furniture dealer for the royal family for many years.

When graduating from University, all of her works were bought by fashion stylist Yasmin Sewell, and then worked as a designer of accessories category in Donna Karan, Calvin Klein, Narciso Rodriguez, Alexander McQueen and other brand studios.

In 2013, he released a series of brand shoes with the same name, and gained praise from both the industry and the market.

According to the world clothing and shoe net, in 2013, Paul Andrew won the "Who Is On Next" annual Accessories Designer Award. In 2014, it won the highest award of the CFDA/Vogue fashion foundation co sponsored by the American Fashion Designers Association and Vogue magazine.

Paul Andrew is a new shoe style for Salvatore.

Obviously, Paul Andrew has no doubt about the experience and ability of women's shoes, but the design skills of women's clothing products still need to be verified.

The first series of Paul Andrew will be the Salvatore Ferragamo 2018 autumn winter clothing series, which will be released early next year.

In announcing the appointment of the new creative director, Eraldo Poletto said that Paul Andrew has its own unique perspective and positioning for Salvatore Ferragamo women's clothing. In the past half a year, the hot selling of its series of products is also a kind of affirmation from consumers, and the whole operation of women's clothing to Paul Andrew will be conducive to the reshaping of the brand image.

He also stressed that 2017 is a pitional period, and the group is restructuring its business.

For the decision of Eraldo Poletto, the vice chairman of Inter Corporate, Armando Branchini, affirmed that women's clothing and footwear were jointly designed by the same designer to better integrate the brand's style.

Another anonymous industry pointed out that Eraldo Poletto can make a correct judgement of the market decisively, proving that he is a capable and bold CEO.

Luca Solca, director of luxury banking in Paris, France, has also made a positive assessment of the decision taken by Paul Andrew to take over Salvatore Ferragamo, saying that although the brand is still in pition, it has gradually entered the right track, and Eraldo Poletto has successfully awakened Salvatore Ferragamo, a sleeping beauty.

Eraldo Poletto joined Salvatore Ferragamo as chief executive in August last year, and had previously held the same post in Furla.

It is reported that Eraldo Poletto has successfully helped Furla achieve the goal of doubling sales in the 5 years of Furla, and is known as the soul of reviving Furla.

At present, Salvatore Ferragamo has obviously pressed all chips on Eraldo Poletto.

After taking office, Eraldo Poletto is determined to make a great pformation of Salvatore Ferragamo, and digitalization is also an important part of its innovation plan.

In order to better develop the Chinese market, Salvatore Ferragamo reached a partnership with the Chinese luxury lifestyle platform monastery at the end of April this year. The two sides plan to open up the online and offline sectors, allowing the high-end crowd on line and offline to circulate.

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When consumers consume Salvatore Ferragamo products online, they can choose to pay online, pick up goods at the brand stores, try them on or enjoy the after-sales service of brands.

When the products purchased by consumers at Salvatore Ferragamo stores are out of stock, they can also be placed through the temple library online platform. The monastery will carry out cargo dispatching and distribution through its national order inventory system, and it will be delivered to the customer's hands by special delivery of temple library.

It is noteworthy that Salvatore Ferragamo has slowed in early 2016 as sales of footwear are not selling, and sales slowed sharply last year to only 1 billion 440 million euros in 1% records, once the speculation of foreign industry personages, Salvatore Ferragamo or will be sold.

Although the Group Chairman Ferruccio Ferragamo has denied the sale rumors, Salvatore Ferragamo, which is too dependent on the shoe department, is further trapped in the performance dilemma.

Salvatore Ferragamo was listed in June 29, 2011, and its large number of hundreds of family members owned shares in the listed group.

In the face of concerns from industry and investors about the slowing growth of Salvatore Ferragamo, Ferruccio Ferragamo said that although the proportion of brand footwear products in the group's total income has declined, it is still higher than other categories, and the growth rate is gradually recovering.

After the release of the earnings report, he reiterated that the brand awareness of Salvatore Ferragamo has greatly improved in the past few years, and will soon resume growth after a series of restructuring measures.

Some analysts have pointed out that behind the bad performance of luxury shoe brands is over reliance on classic styles and single product structure, while industry trends are changing rapidly, and product updates are too slow for consumers to lose their freshness.

At present, the pure accessories brand is generally facing the plight of whether the product line is diversified. In addition, more and more smart consumers may feel that handbags are more worthy of investment than shoes.

For consumers most concerned about the price issue, Eradol Poletto said there was no plan to raise the price of products. Currently, Salvatore Ferragamo's entry-level products sell the best, and the sales of high-end products need to be strengthened.

Eradol Polletto adds that Salvatore Ferragamo should be the creator of fashion, rather than following the trend or conservative tradition.

At present, the group has cut 36% of its inventory and will further reduce SKU in the future to stimulate consumers' desire for new products.

As of June 30, 2017, Salvatore Ferragamo has around 4000 employees and more than 680 specialized stores worldwide.

There are people in the industry who believe that in the uncertain period of luxury fashion retailing, Salvatore Ferragamo must see the changes in the market in time.

However, how the 90 year old luxury brand is facing new challenges is still unknown.

More interesting reports, please pay attention to the world clothing shoes and hats net.