Michele Norsa always carries an amber stone in his left-hand trouser pocket. The reason, says the chief executive of Italian fashion house Salvatore Ferragamo, is "to bring good luck, as I am superstitious".
A luxury goods executive might need fortune on his side these days as the industry navigates uncertain times. Richemont, owner of Cartier and Montblanc, warned this year that it saw "no cause for optimism" after reporting a steeper than anticipated 12 per cent fall in sales over the Christmas quarter.
Mr Norsa says the business environment has been getting worse by the month, especially in mature markets such as Japan and the US. Still, he believes Ferragamo is relatively well placed to weather the downturn. In large part this is bec-ause of an aggressive push into Asia's emerging markets, where it now has 30 per cent of its €700m (£648m) of annual sales. Including Japan, Asia accounts for half of all group sales.
Also, he argues, austerity will persuade consumers to shun "very trendy and very flashy brands" in favour of companies such as Ferragamo, which is steeped in the ethos of its Florentine founder and has a history of craftsmanship since the 1920s. "Classical brands probably fit better the current mood of the consumer," says the 60-year-old Italian, speaking at Ferragamo's new Hong Kong skyscraper office.
That said, the appointment of the jovial, cigar-smoking Mr Norsa in 2006 marks a break with the past. He joined Ferragamo from Valentino, another Italian fashion house which he had taken public and which has since fallen into private equity hands. As the first family outsider to head Ferragamo, his arrival was timed to instil greater professionalism ahead of a public listing. The credit crisis, however, has delayed such ambitions.
He insists it is too early to say whether he will eventually hand the baton back to a family member, but allows that tuition could be seen as part of his job. Two Ferragamo executives, James Ferragamo and Angelica Visconti, are third-generation family members.
Mr Norsa wrote his thesis at university in Milan on the textile industry, but then spent a decade in publishing before being headhunted in 1985 by the owners of Sergio Tacchini, the sports brand. He says book publishing and clothes have obvious similarities, "you work with products which are renewed every month" but admits that his switch to fashion was pragmatic.
"When you are a manager, money is also important at a certain point and there are proposals you cannot refuse," he says. With trademark candour, he adds that he does not rate himself as a very creative person, which has kept him at arm's length from Ferragamo's designers.
In spite of his optimism that classical brands will retain their allure, the outlook for 2009 is not bright. While Ferragamo added more than 40 stores last year, bringing the total to 550, expansion will slow to about 30 this year, including postponements of earlier plans in more established Asian markets such as Shanghai and Macao.
However, Asia's long-term growth prospects remain largely undimmed, Mr Norsa believes, especially in China "where opportunities in second- and third-tier cities are still quite important".
Overall, he argues, recession is an opportunity for his industry to simplify sales and purge the excesses of the boom years. Mr Norsa welcomes signs that "the industry is now really moving in the same direction"; he and his counterparts have "perhaps for the first time" been comparing notes on how to respond to a changing marketplace. He has plenty to say in that debate.
First, the sector should reduce the number of annual collections, which have multiplied at the request of American retailers and forced fashion houses into a permanent process of designing".
Second, marketing and advertising budgets should be shifted away from lavish media campaigns towards more in-store events that directly benefit shoppers. "We need to focus more on our consumers rather than the image of a brand which is already very established," he says.
Third, fashion houses should end their race to open ever-larger stores. "Most brands have been thinking about very, very large stores but we now realise that it's not always the size of the store that drives traffic," he says.
A final preoccupation is spending on the catwalk: "Companies have been investing heavily in fashion shows, which have become more and more costly and big," he says. "The luxury industry now has to rethink how to do business in a profitable way without wasting energy on sometimes useless expenses."
But while the days of top models in platinum-coated attire may be numbered, he is not panicking yet. Fashion buyers, he says, will not desert luxury brands but will instead spend less, but on the best.
Pointing to the recent rush of Japanese to South Korea to take advantage of the won's fall against the yen, he says: "People aren't really looking for cheaper items but they are now very interested in bargains and want to buy where the price is best."
Similarly, he predicts, brands that run their own outlets will suffer less than those that rely on department stores. Ferragamo directly operates half its stores. "The department store is definitely the place where you want to go when you have not yet decided what to buy.
More and more consumers, especially younger ones, now leave home already knowing where they want to go and what they want to buy and, of course, probably find a better service and offer in mono-brand stores."
A belief in sticking to a single brand does not imply a lack of ambition to diversify Ferragamo's product range, however. Mr Norsa is wearing a chunky titanium watch that is part of the group's first collection, launched last year, and which follows the development of a fragrance business and an eyewear joint venture with Luxottica.
Ferragamo is also making a foray into property, as interior designer for what is expected to be the world's highest residential building, the luxury Pentominium in Dubai. Meanwhile, Mr Norsa is eyeing a home furnishing collection.
In 2007, ahead of the planned listing, analysts valued Ferragamo at about €1bn. Mr Norsa declines to name a figure now, but insists the IPO preparations brought "more rigour, discipline and probably [operational] speed" to the company.
As he steers Ferragamo through stormy waters, he sees a silver lining to the IPO delay, especially for a debt-free company: "The family vision of a business is much more long term than that of private equity or public shareholders and it's definitely an advantage in tough market circumstances."
Michele Norsa leads a company that has a history of overcoming reversals in the financial markets.
Salvatore Ferragamo, having established himself in the 1920s as the favourite Italian shoemaker of Marlene Dietrich and an array of other Hollywood stars, mismanaged his American expansion. He was eventually forced into the hands of moneylenders and then bankrupted in the aftermath of the 1929 Wall Street crash.
The collapse left him determined to try afresh but with a different approach. "The bankruptcy had taken everything, but it could not take away my knowledge of shoes," Mr Ferragamo wrote in his autobiography.
One of his conclusions was that his long-term ambitions could not be reconciled with those of potential financiers. "The world of business, I now realised, was a vast confidence trick," he wrote.
"The job of a business was to make money and pay dividends to stockholders. I did not want to pay dividends until the business was properly established in the way I wanted it established . . . I would repay every penny claimed against me, and when I was again solvent I would never beg for outside capital. I would finance myself entirely."
Plans for a public listing notwithstanding, financial and managerial independence is nowadays a clear asset, Mr Norsa believes. "The family vision of a business is much more long term than that of private equity or public shareholders. It's definitely an advantage in tough market circumstances."
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