Asked at FGI’s Tastemakers event last week whether the company ever sees an opportunity for the company’s brands to play outside their current realm, Fabrezio Freda gave a firm answer: no.
“The answer is no, that will never be our business model, we have a few examples of exceptions because of practical reasons. In general either we have retailers that do their job very well, or a brand is creating their own freestanding store.Or sometimes, there’s both. Those two models per se are the right models. A third model where you put just a few brands together competing with your own is kind of weird and is not strategic. However, there are exceptions, there are places in the world, emerging markets, where for a certain period of time that makes sense because there are no alternatives. Sometimes tactically we can use a model like that but it is not strategic.”