Newsmaker of the Year: Pietro Beccari
Christian Dior Couture's chairman and CEO went big and bold in 2022 with stores, shows, exhibitions and more.
A giant portrait of Christian Dior by artist Dongyoo Kim, composed of multiple Marilyn Monroes, lords over the office of Pietro Beccari, the fashion house’s dynamic chairman and chief executive officer.
Beccari takes the founder’s entrepreneurial spirit and daring to heart, and then some, which has sent Dior on a growth trajectory that has become the envy of the industry.
“If you don’t take risks, you have no reward,” he said with a grin. “I often say to my teams, ‘If you have everything under control, you’re not going fast enough.'”
By all accounts, 2022 was a huge year for the French fashion house, and Beccari’s mantra seemed to be “Go big or go home” in rolling out dreamy destination fashion shows, gobsmacking pop-up shops and department-store takeovers, mega exhibitions and a Paris flagship store that broke the luxury mold: It incorporates a museum, a restaurant, pastry café, leafy courtyards, a 26-foot-tall rose sculpture by Isa Genzken and a hotel suite that offers a special few the run of 30 Avenue Montaigne all night long.
In an interview, WWD’s Newsmaker of the Year described a management philosophy that might surprise you: one that embraces chaos, values inconsistency and yet leaves nothing to chance.
To be sure, Beccari embodies the opposite of resting on one’s laurels, deeming Dior a “sacred” and “eternal” brand deserving of the best talents, projects and success.
“At the base, I’m completely unsatisfied,” he said, getting up from the sofa to fetch the small red book by advertising tycoon David Ogilvy that’s forever propped up against his desktop computer. The title reads: “The Eternal Pursuit of Unhappiness: Being Very Good Is No Good, You Have to Be Very, Very, Very, Very, Very Good.”
“It’s a bit the philosophy that probably helps to keep me on the edge. This is the secret to boldly going forward and forgetting all the past. I think I learned this from sport,” the former professional soccer player explained. “You know, if you win a championship, you have to forget about it and concentrate on the next championship.
“On the other side, it’s also a way for me not to live a very relaxed life, because I’m always on the quest of something. So I’m satisfied. Yes, I am. But I’m more worried about what I will do next, to be honest,” he continued. “I’m super glad to have a team that believes in me and backs me and is super proud of what we achieved together. Because I didn’t do it alone. I did it with an incredible team.”
Beccari and company kicked off the year by finally reopening Dior’s historic Paris flagship after a complex renovation that amalgamated several buildings to create an immersive brand complex spanning nearly 108,000 square feet. The gambit shuttered Dior’s most productive store in the world for several years; displaced about 400 employees, including Maria Grazia Chiuri, artistic director of women’s collections, and the entire couture atelier.
By all accounts, the complex seems to be a roaring success, welcoming about 5,000 people every day, the executive said. La Galerie de Dior, billed as the biggest permanent exhibition space dedicated to fashion in the hands of a private house, is booked solid two months in advance.
Although the museum has a separate entrance, many visitors make a beeline for the boutique afterward.
Beccari said he didn’t anticipate that museumgoers would be the same clients as the store.
“And we realized, to our surprise, that on Tuesdays when the museum is closed, like all museums and galleries in Paris, our business goes down,” he said. “I think people are going to see the history of Dior, they get inspired with what they see, and visit the store in order to go home with a piece of the legend.”
The executive said the majority of the visitors are local but the gallery and store also welcome tourists from Italy, Spain, Germany, the U.S. and Southeast Asia. “It became a landmark to visit,” he said with a chuckle.
The private suite has proved popular with celebrities and business bigwigs: “They stay maybe two nights, they go shopping at night, they invite friends,” Beccari said. “It’s pretty amazing.”
Concepts from La Galerie Dior are already infiltrating other top Dior stores: the “colorama” display of miniature dresses and 3D-printed accessories that hugs the circular staircase and gets everyone filming is now present at SKP’s VIP suite in Beijing and at Harrods in London, and its “cabinets de curiosités,” a corridor lined with extraordinary couture accessories, is also being introduced in some locations.
“So basically we use that appendix of Montaigne to enhance the feeling and the richness of flagships,” he said.
Over a stellar career at Dior parent LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton that has seen him also leading Fendi to greater heights, Beccari has earned a reputation as a driven, audacious and exacting executive who doesn’t do anything by halves.
“I believe in boldness and presence,” he said, noting it’s a posture he maintained throughout the pandemic, continuing to invest in headline projects when many brands stayed silent. “I think we have to preserve this leadership of share of voice. It’s important to be heard and to be seen by clients. A brand like Dior has many facets, therefore it’s important to present the multiplicity of values that makes a luxury brand.…A luxury brand has depth, it has meaning.”
Beccari is an unabashed fan of innovation and grand gestures.
“I always tell my team, ‘Don’t come to me with a boring idea, ideas which are conventional’ because I most likely reject ideas which are banal,” he said.
The philosophy of daring was espoused by the founder.
“We try to live by his legacy. He has been, first of all, a dreamer, because he wanted to fulfill his dream to become a couturier, and he did that just after the war,” Beccari said. “And he was an innovator from Day One, changing the silhouette with the famous New Look that revolutionized fashion at the time and forever. He was bold and a risk taker, also as an entrepreneur.”
While consistency is often cited as a strong value in luxury, Beccari begs to differ.
“In everything we do there is the respect of the tradition, which is very strong at Dior, but the willingness to go beyond that,” he said. “I believe you have to be able to change direction, to be unpredictable.…Sometimes contrasts are more important in order to light up the flame of desirability. The tradition is there to be tickled, to be stretched, to be somewhat mistreated and to look modern and in the now.
“I always tell my people to embrace chaos and to put chaos into their business because if they always think the same, we become predictable and we become boring. You have to have the courage and the willingness to change,” he said.
As an example, he cited the 2020 collaboration with Nike on limited-edition Air Jordan 1 OG Dior sneakers. Roughly 5 million people — about the population of Ireland or New Zealand — registered for a chance to buy the 8,000 pairs available for purchase.
Another was the 2019 cruise show in Marrakech, Morocco, a first for a European luxury brand in Africa and one that involved a host of guest designers and artisans from the continent.
Dior has long had a reputation for spectacular fashion shows and the house continues to raise the bar, with Kim Jones staging itinerant runway events for pre-fall men’s collections, unique in the industry, and Chiuri also taking her pre-fall shows on the road at the time of delivery — a version of see now, buy now and a showcase for artisanship abroad. Last June, Dior presented high jewelry in Taormina, Sicily, with models wearing 40 special couture dresses made for the occasion.
“I am glad to have three superstar designers,” said Beccari, referring to Jones, in charge of the men’s universe; Chiuri, all women’s categories, including couture, and Victoire de Castellane, who in 2023 will mark 25 years as creative head of Dior Joaillerie.
“I think in the industry, the sum of these three talent is difficult to match,” he asserted. “They are major creative talents, they’re also strong characters with strong wills and personalities. I have a strong personality, too, and therefore we discuss a lot. We don’t always agree, we have our constructive discussions.”
As the leader of a top French couture house, Beccari said he “concentrates on the quality of the people and try to get the best out to them. I adapt my style of management based on with whom I am speaking.
“I’m someone sharing vision. I’m transparent and fast-paced and transparent. I give answers quickly and I demand answers quickly,” he said. “I try to create a culture where everybody feels like part of something.”
Beccari also praised his boss, LVMH chairman and CEO Bernard Arnault, for having a long-term vision in building his luxury brands and a penchant for bold moves, like the 30 Avenue Montaigne project, which required nerves of steel (not to mention deep pockets given the cost).
“He gave me the freedom and the trust to go for it and to take the risk,” Beccari said. “Sometimes you have to believe with your stomach more than with your head.…You have to navigate with your instinct.”
Beccari made it clear that the spectacular show destinations are the brainchild of his creative directors.
“They have to feel an inspiration,” he explained. “They come in and we discuss together where is the show and then they explain why. And then we try to put at their disposal all the means to do something important, something impactful. Because the shows are important not because of the 1,500 people attending, but for the 120 million, 150 million people watching at home.”
A native of Parma, Italy, Beccari started his career in international marketing at consumer products giant Reckitt Benckiser in Milan. He went on to work for Parmalat in New York for a couple of years before joining Henkel in Germany, where he worked for 10 years.
In 2006, he arrived at LVMH’s flagship brand Louis Vuitton as director of strategy and marketing coordination. From 2009 he held the role of Vuitton’s executive vice president of communications and marketing with worldwide responsibilities. He dramatically developed both the accessories and ready-to-wear businesses, working with the then-artistic director Marc Jacobs, and rose in the ranks to become executive vice president.
In 2012, Beccari became CEO of Fendi in Rome, where he helped propel the Roman house beyond the billion-euro revenue mark by dropping its ubiquitous logo bags in favor of more upscale products. He also developed lifestyle destinations like Palazzo Fendi in Rome, composed of a boutique hotel and Zuma restaurant, and took the bold step of making the Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana, aka “the Square Colosseum,” into the house’s new corporate headquarters.
He was moved to the management helm of Dior in 2017 and continued his streak of bold moves.
In the interview, he revealed that he’s received several offers to go back and work in fast-moving consumer goods in very high positions in recent years.
But he rebuffed them, saying he’s smitten with the luxury sector.
“I discovered a world that I love more and more because it gives you the chance to meet incredible people having a huge impact on society and on creativity: artists, creative directors, architects,” he enthused. “You’re involved in in things that people care about, that touches the emotions of people. And luxury is all about emotions. You create a desire. The artisan creates a product with emotion and this emotion is felt back by the clients.
“We create dreams. That’s what Mr. Dior did in founding the company in 1947,” he said. “The desirability of today is the sales of tomorrow.…I wouldn’t put limits to the growth of this sacred brand.”