2024 was “the most difficult year”. And for 2025, the watchwords are prudence and flexibility, but still accompanied by ambitious goals. Pietro Beccari, CEO of Louis Vuitton, the world’s largest luxury brand (controlled by LVMH), tells MFF. Beccari explains what the luxury crisis is caused by, and why he is confident of a recovery, but without revealing when he expects it to come.
Most difficult year
Pietro Beccari does not believe that the market crisis is, at least in part, caused by product standardization. The lack of creativity denounced by many in his view has nothing to do with it. “I actually think that the slowdown in luxury is related to extraordinarily difficult economic conditions, dependent on multiple circumstances, not least, the prices of raw materials, the wars, the cost of money”, the manager argues.
“All this has created significant economic instability and depression. A scenario that led to a very complicated year”. Beccari says 2024 was the most difficult of the 12 years he has been serving as CEO of a luxury brand. “It was even more difficult than the Covid’s one, because then you knew there would be an end”. The Louis Vuitton CEO does not fail to point out that analysts were also wrong, because “they were convinced that the second half of the year would be back on the right track….”
The future
What does the future hold? “Perhaps I am too optimistic, but after all the crises I have experienced as CEO, there has been even stronger and unexpected growth“, Beccari answers. However, he doesn’t give an opinion on when the sector will return to the positive area. “We face 2025 with caution, as we should”, says the manager, who on the subject of the Chinese market notes, “I don’t think local consumption will know an infinite crisis. I think there will be, as with the rest of the world, a time of downturn and a time of restart there as well”.
The value of durability
Beccari also reveals his idea of sustainability, which is linked to the durability of the product and therefore the possibility of repairing it, according to eco-design criteria. The brand’s collections must meet this requirement. “Vuitton’s products are never welded, never sold by third parties and therefore are repairable for life. We are the only ones who have large stockpiles of screws and metal parts to be able to repair bags”.
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