Who Will Be The Successor Of The Armani Group?

From the point of view of Milan fashion week, Giorgio Armani is called Milan's finale.

Especially after the death of Karl, the industry will focus on another legendary fashion master, Giorgio Armani.

Giorgio Armani is still well established in the 2019 autumn and winter show.

The work gave the industry a satisfactory answer, with smooth lines tailoring and different.

Collocation is still a charming female double faced charm, which belongs to the eternal imprint of Giorgio Armani.

Mr. Armani and his Armani group

Though Karl Lagerfeld is only one year old, Giorgio Armani old man differs from Karl as CHANEL art director. Armani created his Armani business empire.

The industry likes to call Lagerfeld as Lord of Buddha, and Armani as king. Because of its CEO and creative director, it is responsible for the orderly operation of the 2704 stores in the world.

For different customer groups, Armani group's many sub lines provide high fashion custom, garment series, cowboy,

And other products.

At the same time, there are also Armani jewelry, glasses, home furnishing, fragrance, and even chocolate and flowers.

At the same time, Mr. Armani extended his business empire to hotels, restaurants, nightclubs, etc.

Under the command of Armani, a large commercial group operates in an orderly way.

However, the news of the death of Karl Lagerfeld triggered the industry's discussion on the topic of "heirs".

For Armani group, who will be the heir of Giorgio Armani?

Karl has been working for Chanel for 33 years, but Giorgio Armani has created its own brand with one hand, so far the Armani group has been established for 44 years.

According to the world clothing and shoe net, in 1975, Giorgio Armani opened its own brand of the same name with the help and encouragement of Sergio Galeotti.

In the early days of the brand, Mr. Armani was responsible for creativity and inspiration, and Sergio was responsible for the operation of the business.

After the death of the business partner Sergio Galeotti1985, Armani began to take charge of brand design and business matters at the same time, and showed an unexpected market mentality.

In 1970s, Armani took the lead in blurring the design boundary between men and women, so that women's clothing had a rich sense of profile, while men's wear was softer.

The rise of the Armani brand is on the edge of the age of the times. In 70s, the occupational barriers between sex began to be broken, and women could be engaged in the industry that was originally only male.

In the context of this era, a new group of professional women needs an elegant and imposing career dress.

In the 70-90 era, Power Dressing, designed by Mr. Armani, became the favorite of working women.

With the maturity and aging of Italy's traditional fashion industry, Armani has led his commercial empire into the US market in search of a new growth area.

In the United States, a rather radical "star strategy" has been adopted. Armani sponsors celebrities to wear formal occasions, especially the red carpet.

According to incomplete statistics, the clothing brand list and Armani are still one of the main choices of the female star's red carpet attire.

Who will be the successor of the Armani group?

"Although I did not expect to achieve such an achievement at the age of 80, the fact is before us, and we can not work forever."

Armani said in an interview with BoF: "the future group's feasible ways of operation include: sell to large group, I quit; the company is listed, supervised by a strong and talented director, or set up a foundation."

On many occasions, Mr. Armani was asked about the successor's choice, and he did not disclose the specific candidate. He once described in his interview the person who could hold the Armani group in his eyes - "the talent of Tom Ford is not necessarily Italian".

Judging from immediate family members, Mr. Armani himself has no children. His two nieces, Roberta and Silvana, are currently working in the group. Silvana is director of women's clothing department in the design department, and Roberta is responsible for the public relations matters of the group.

Now it seems that the sense of existence of Roberta is slightly stronger. Some social issues, such as contacting VIP, or representing group donations, are mostly represented by her on behalf of Mr. Armani.

Before 2014, the outside world regarded the Andrea Camerana, the son of Armani's younger sister, as the successor of the group, and temporarily acted as a substitute for Armani when he left his post temporarily due to illness.

Later, he left the group due to "family reasons" and his board of directors was retained.

In July 2016, Mr. Armani opened the charitable foundation in my name. The foundation held 9500 shares of Giorgio Armani group, representing a 0.1% stake.

The foundation will invest in some social and public related projects, and also provide financial protection and strategic recommendations for Armani group.

Mr. Armani said that after he passed away, three people would help to implement the related affairs of the foundation, and the foundation could make a statement about the company's major resolutions.

From all kinds of signals, compared with the further development of the group, Mr. Armani pays more attention to the independence and integrity of the brand.

The independent establishment of the foundation ensures that the group will not "fall into the hands of outsiders" as much as possible.

This is also evident in the arrangement of the company's shares. His nieces and nephews will have certain shares of the company, but they can only sell the shares they have on hand to Armani foundation instead of outsiders.

The brand was once heard of IPO's plan, and it also ran aground because of its performance or the boss's will.

"I hope my successors can live in harmony," Mr. Lao said in an interview. The way that the foundation will lead will also be able to move as smoothly as possible, and will have a more moderate impact on the family's internal relationship.

{page_break}

The times have changed, and the Armani group is in the throes of pain.

In the long run, where will the future follow?

Foreign media commented that today's Armani group, Cheng also Xiao He, defeated Xiao He, the root knot is Mr. Armani.

According to 2018 public earnings data, in 2017, the Armani group's total revenue was 2 billion 300 million euros, down 7% from the previous year.

In fact, since 2015, the group's revenues have shown a continuous decline.

Analysts also predict that in the next two years, the total revenue of Armani group will continue to decline, which is related to the ongoing structural adjustment. After the completion of the restructuring in 2020, Armani group will pick up the upward trend again.

For today's luxury industry, streamlining business lines and strengthening luxury positioning become an inevitable trend.

In today's lack of attention, how to make consumers continue to pay attention to product design, in addition to traffic star strategy and social media communication, orderly optimization of matrix echelons has also become a brand reform strategy.

Complex collateral lines weaken the group's influence in the market.

In other words, the complex sub line brands dilute the most advanced clothing Giorgio Armani brand assets.

Armani group owns advanced garments Giorgio Armani, light luxury line Le Collezioni, mid-range garments Emporio Armani, Armani leisure Jeans, fast fashion Armani Jeans and children's brand Armani.

Under each fashion brand, there is the refinement of ready-made garments, underwear, swimwear and accessories.

The type of business is too complicated and lengthy, and the interval between lines is not clear, which makes it difficult for consumers to form a loyal brand identity.

In early 2017, Mr. Armani took the lead in restructuring the group and streamlined and integrated the brand and business lines.

In February 2017, the group announced the termination of the two sub brands of Armani Collezioni and Armani Jeans to merge into the latter two brands.

After that, Giorgio Armani Prive and home product Armani/Casa were merged into Giorgio Armani.

The future Armani group will be streamlined into three brand lines: Giorgio Armani, Emporio Armani and A|X Armani Exchange.

It is worth mentioning that in the increasingly competitive industry, Armani Ralph Lauren, Marc Jacobs, Dolce & Gabbana have reduced the brand line, especially the cancellation of the brand secondary line.

In the case of slower growth in luxury industries, reducing the impact of lower price side line brands on the main brand will also reduce the dilution of the secondary line to designers' energy.

However, there are comments in the industry: Armani group is no longer the glory of the past, but also closely related to changes in the young consumer environment.

How does the 84 year old Armani lead the group to a younger age? This is a challenging topic.

Armani group design team, many of them are old employees who have been following the old man.

However, under the wave of younger age, such a "aging" setup lacks the continuous injection of fresh blood. The 44 year old Armani group is hard to understand the changing tastes of consumers nowadays.

Similar to the Tod 's group is also questioned about the aging of the "product innovation", analysts pointed out that Tod' s Dou shoes and Hogan bags, the two core groups of the group's lack of vitality, is no longer welcomed by consumers.

Sales in Europe and America are particularly sluggish, according to earnings reports.

The so-called pformation of Tod s group is to make efforts in product renewal cycle and e-commerce channel.

Under the premise that the sales volume of bags in the luxury industry is better than that of footwear, the traditional idea is based on "No_code".

It is worth mentioning that today's Armani group is more stillness in social media, and is also one of the reasons for the weak market.

It is becoming more and more important to curry favor with young people and catch the eye from social media. However, Mr. Armani is not enthusiastic about how to give full play to young people in his own field.

The common predicament of Milan fashion houses

We surveyed the story of inheritance and inheritance of other 100 years of fashion houses, trying to find some references, but found that this is not the embarrassing situation faced by Armani group.

With the fast changing trend, the sales volume and the eyeball being king, the situation of fashion houses is becoming more and more difficult.

Centenary fashion houses, especially Italy fashion houses, are mostly built by traditional crafts and handicraft shops by family businesses.

Milan fashion house has a strong sense of family heritage and pays more attention to design than business.

This prompted them to insist on brand style all the way, but to a certain extent, it has become the further expansion of the ceiling.

For such a family business, the biggest challenge lies in the same origin of design soul.

Family businesses will not consider designers' replacement easily.

When the position of creative director is occupied by the soul for a long time and the designer echelons do not have a good rising channel, the next generation of designers is really hard to get ahead.

It is even more difficult to select talents from within the family.

Interestingly, luxury giants continue to focus their attention on fashion houses in order to expand their territory.

More and more brands began to rely on big groups. LVMH's FENDI, Emilio Pucci, Bottega Veneta, and Versace were also sold by Michael Kors group.

For commercial group, relative fashion house has relatively perfect design system and business talent echelon and promotion path. Sufficient cash flow also makes it "omnipotent".

Even in the course of designers' change, commercial operation can ensure that the brand is stable over this period.

In the increasingly fierce competition in the luxury industry, Milan fashion houses want to have a place. What we need to solve now is the "aging" problem under the family heritage.

How to ensure family succession, leaders, successors training system and family internal resolution mechanism are three indispensable points.

However, how long will it take for this era to be heard from another fashion house or will be acquired?

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