Tariffs and Conglomerates Are Chasing Them. Italy's Biggest Fashion Families Are Unfazed.

Wall Street Journal

a day ago

One morning this spring, Brunello Cucinelli whistled as he strode from a cafe he'd just finished refurbishing to the 14th-century castle that houses one of the 130 stores in his luxury sportswear empire. From the top of the hill that crowns Solomeo, the Umbrian hamlet where he's lived and worked for four decades, nearly everything in view had been touched by Cucinelli in one way or another: low-lying modern factory buildings home to his operation, but also a theater, a soccer field and production facilities for both wine and olive oil. An agrarian park, open to the handful of villagers who don't work for the company (1,500 are Cucinelli employees), contains Cucinelli's travertine Tribute to Human Dignity.
'Every human being,' Cucinelli said, 'is supposed to live where they were born.' This is why, even as he built his eponymous brand from a collection of a few dozen sweaters to a swaggering empire heavy on the casually luxe Italian style philosophy known as sprezzatura, Cucinelli remained here in Solomeo, where he's lived since 1985, and where his wife, Federica, was born. His daughters, Carolina and Camilla, were born here, too, and now live in town with their spouses ('the husbands,' Carolina calls them). All four work for the company.