In 2022, Kering generated €20.35 billion in revenue, of which €10.49 billion from Gucci (50.6%), €3.3 billion from Yves Saint Laurent (15.9%), €1.74 billion from Bottega Veneta (8.39%), and €3.87 billion from the other houses.
Indeed, Gucci contributed to over 50% of the Kering Group revenue in 2022.
There is also another interesting aspect of it.
In the late 1990s, the luxury sector started consolidating in the hands of a few prominent players, including LVMH, headed by Bernard Arnault.
Arnault had tried to take over Gucci, but a war ensued as the executive team at Gucci tried all it could to prevent LVMH from taking over.
They knew that once Bernard Arnault had taken a stake in the company, he would have taken control shortly (that was the aggressive playbook used by Arnault).
Indeed, while LVMH had successfully acquired a stake in Gucci, it never managed to gain a majority stake.
Eventually, Gucci went into the hands of another french billionaire, Pinault, which created the only luxury group able to compete against LVMH.
LVMH is a luxury group owned by the Arnault family, which generated over €79 billion in revenue ($83 billion) in revenue in 2022, with a luxury empire that spans many segments. Yet the fashion and leather goods segment (which comprises brands like Fendi and Louis Vuitton) is the major one, and it generated over €39 billion in revenue, in 2022.
Today, Kering and LVMH combined to form two luxury giants, now a good chunk of the most iconic luxury brands.
A few brands, like Prada, managed to stay independent.
The family-owned Italian luxury brand – Prada – generated over four billion euros in revenues for 2022. Among Prada brands, Prada made more than 87% of the company’s revenues, followed by Miu Miu and Church. Prada also owns Marchesi 1824 (a luxury bakery) and Car Shoe (a shoe company) made about half a percent of the total revenues.
Bernard Arnault’s wealth is around $203 billion. Indeed Arnault is the CEO and chairman of the luxury goods conglomerate LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, a massive luxury group that generated over €79 billion in revenue ($83 billion) in 2022, spanning across wines, fashion, cosmetics, and retail. The Arnault family group owns 48.18% of the capital for LVMH with 63.9% voting power, making Bernard Arnault the principal owner and decision-maker. His stake is worth over $203 billion.
Slow fashion is a movement in contraposition with fast fashion. Where in fast fashion, it’s all about speed from design to manufacturing and distribution, in slow fashion, quality and sustainability of the supply chain are the key elements.
Patagonia is an American clothing retailer founded by climbing enthusiast Yvon Chouinard in 1973 who saw initial success by selling reusable climbing pitons and Scottish rugby shirts. Over time Patagonia also became a fashionable brand also for its focus on slow fashion. Indeed, the company sells high-priced clothing items built to last which it will repair for free.
Patagonia has a particular organizational structure, where its founder, Chouinard, disposed of the company’s ownership in the hands of two non-profits. The Patagonia Purpose Trust, holding 100% of the voting stocks, is in charge of defining the company’s strategic direction. And the Holdfast Collective, a non-profit, holds 100% of non-voting stocks, aiming to re-invest the brand’s dividends into environmental causes.
Fash fashion has been a phenomenon that became popular in the late 1990s and early 2000s, as players like Zara and H&M took over the fashion industry by leveraging on shorter and shorter design-manufacturing-distribution cycles. Reducing these cycles from months to a few weeks. With just-in-time logistics and flagship stores in iconic places in the largest cities in the world, these brands offered cheap, fashionable clothes and a wide variety of designs.
With over €27 billion in sales in 2021, the Spanish Fast Fashion Empire, Inditex, which comprises eight sister brands, has grown thanks to a strategy of expanding its flagship stores in exclusive locations around the globe. Its largest brand, Zara, contributed over 70% of the group’s revenue. The country that contributed the most to the fast fashion Empire sales was Spain, with over 15% of its revenues.
The Ultra Fashion business model is an evolution of fast fashion with a strong online twist. Indeed, where the fast-fashion retailer invests massively in logistics and warehousing, its costs are still skewed toward operating physical retail stores. While the ultra-fast fashion retailer mainly moves its operations online, thus focusing its cost centers on logistics, warehousing, and a mobile-based digital presence.
ASOS is a British online fashion retailer founded in 2000 by Nick Robertson, Andrew Regan, Quentin Griffiths, and Deborah Thorpe. As an online fashion retailer, ASOS makes money by purchasing clothes from wholesalers and then selling them for a profit. This includes the sale of private label or own-brand products. ASOS further expanded on the fast fashion business model to create an ultra-fast fashion model driven by short sales cycles and online mobile e-commerce as the main drivers.
Real-time retail involves the instantaneous collection, analysis, and distribution of data to give consumers an integrated and personalized shopping experience. This represents a strong new trend, as a further evolution of fast fashion first (who turned the design into manufacturing in a few weeks), ultra-fast fashion later (which further shortened the cycle of design-manufacturing). Real-time retail turns fashion trends into clothes collections in a few days or a maximum of one week.
SHEIN is an international B2C fast fashion eCommerce platform founded in 2008 by Chris Xu. The company improved the ultra-fast fashion model by leveraging real-time retail, quickly turning fashion trends in clothes collections through its strong digital presence and successful branding campaigns.
Gennaro is the creator of FourWeekMBA, which reached about four million business people, comprising C-level executives, investors, analysts, product managers, and aspiring digital entrepreneurs in 2022 alone | He is also Director of Sales for a high-tech scaleup in the AI Industry | In 2012, Gennaro earned an International MBA with emphasis on Corporate Finance and Business Strategy.
