A large portrait of Christian Dior by artist Dongyoo Kim, composed of multiple Marilyn Monroes, lords over the office of Pietro Beccari, the style house’s dynamic chairman and chief executive officer.

Beccari takes the founder’s entrepreneurial spirit and daring to heart, after which some, which has sent Dior on a growth trajectory that has change into the envy of the industry.

“In case you don’t take risks, you’ve gotten no reward,” he said with a smile. “I often say to my teams, ‘If you’ve gotten every part under control, you’re not going fast enough.’”

By all accounts, 2022 was an enormous 12 months for the French fashion house, and Beccari’s mantra gave the impression 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 luxurious 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 provides a special few the run of 30 Avenue Montaigne all night long.

In an interview, WWD’s Newsmaker of the Yr described a management philosophy which may surprise you: one which embraces chaos, values inconsistency and yet leaves nothing to probability.

To make sure, Beccari embodies the alternative of resting on one’s laurels, deeming Dior a “sacred” and “everlasting” brand deserving of one of the best talents, projects and success.

“At the bottom, I’m completely unsatisfied,” he said, getting up from the sofa to fetch the small red book by promoting tycoon David Ogilvy that’s ceaselessly propped up against his desktop computer. The title reads: “The Everlasting Pursuit of Unhappiness: Being Very Good Is No Good, You Should Be Very, Very, Very, Very, Very Good.”

“It’s a bit the philosophy that probably helps to maintain me on the sting. That is the key to boldly going forward and forgetting all of the past. I believe I learned this from sport,” the previous skilled soccer player explained. “, in case you win a championship, you’ve gotten to ignore it and focus on the following championship.

“On the opposite side, it’s also a way for me to not live a really relaxed life, because I’m at all times on the search of something. So I’m satisfied. Yes, I’m. But I’m more nervous about what I’ll 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 pleased with what we achieved together. Because I didn’t do it alone. I did it with an incredible team.”

Beccari and company kicked off the 12 months by finally reopening Dior’s historic Paris flagship after a posh renovation that amalgamated several buildings to create an immersive brand complex spanning nearly 108,000 square feet. The gambit shuttered Dior’s most efficient store on the earth for several years; displaced about 400 employees, including Maria Grazia Chiuri, artistic director of ladies’s collections, and the whole couture atelier.

By all accounts, the complex appears to be a roaring success, welcoming about 5,000 people every single day, the manager said. La Galerie de Dior, billed as the largest everlasting exhibition space dedicated to fashion within the hands of a non-public house, is booked solid two months prematurely.

Although the museum has a separate entrance, many visitors make a beeline for the boutique afterward.

Beccari said he didn’t anticipate that museumgoers can be the identical clients because 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 believe individuals are going to see the history of Dior, they get inspired with what they see, and visit the shop in an effort to go home with a bit of the legend.”

The chief said the vast majority of the visitors are local however the gallery and store also welcome tourists from Italy, Spain, Germany, the U.S. and Southeast Asia. “It became a landmark to go to,” he said with a chuckle.

The private suite has proved popular with celebrities and business bigwigs: “They stay perhaps two nights, they buy groceries 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, can be being introduced in some locations.

“So principally we use that appendix of Montaigne to boost the sensation and the richness of flagships,” he said.

Over a stellar profession at Dior parent LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton that has seen him also leading Fendi to greater heights, Beccari has earned a repute as a driven, audacious and exacting executive who doesn’t do anything by halves.

“I think in boldness and presence,” he said, noting it’s a posture he maintained throughout the pandemic, continuing to take a position in headline projects when many brands stayed silent. “I believe we’ve got to preserve this leadership of share of voice. It’s necessary to be heard and to be seen by clients. A brand like Dior has many facets, due to this fact it’s necessary 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 at all times tell my team, ‘Don’t come to me with a boring idea, ideas that are conventional’ because I more than likely reject ideas that are banal,” he said.

The philosophy of daring was espoused by the founder.

“We attempt to live by his legacy. He has been, to begin with, a dreamer, because he wanted to satisfy his dream to change into 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 Recent Look that revolutionized fashion on the time and ceaselessly. He was daring and a risk taker, also as an entrepreneur.”

While consistency is commonly cited as a robust value in luxury, Beccari begs to differ.

“In every part we do there’s the respect of the tradition, which could be very strong at Dior, however the willingness to transcend that,” he said. “I think you’ve gotten to have the ability to vary direction, to be unpredictable.…Sometimes contrasts are more necessary in an effort 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 within the now.

“I at all times tell my people to embrace chaos and to place chaos into their business because in the event that they at all times think the identical, we change into predictable and we change into boring. You will have to have the courage and the willingness to vary,” he said.

For instance, he cited the 2020 collaboration with Nike on limited-edition Air Jordan 1 OG Dior sneakers. Roughly 5 million people — concerning the population of Ireland or Recent Zealand — registered for a probability to purchase the 8,000 pairs available for purchase.

One other was the 2019 cruise show in Marrakech, Morocco, a primary for a European luxury brand in Africa and one which involved a number of guest designers and artisans from the continent.

Dior has long had a repute for spectacular fashion shows and the home continues to lift the bar, with Kim Jones staging itinerant runway events for pre-fall men’s collections, unique within the industry, and Chiuri also taking her pre-fall shows on the road on 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’m glad to have three superstar designers,” said Beccari, referring to Jones, in command of the boys’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 believe within the industry, the sum of those three talent is difficult to match,” he asserted. “They’re major creative talents, they’re also strong characters with strong wills and personalities. I even have a robust personality, too, and due to this fact we discuss quite a bit. We don’t at all times agree, we’ve got our constructive discussions.”

Because the leader of a top French couture house, Beccari said he “concentrates on the standard of the people and check out to get one of the best out to them. I adapt my kind of management based on with whom I’m 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 attempt to create a culture where everybody looks like a part of something.”

Beccari also praised his boss, LVMH chairman and CEO Bernard Arnault, for having a long-term vision in constructing his luxury brands and a penchant for daring moves, just like the 30 Avenue Montaigne project, which required nerves of steel (not to say deep pockets given the price).

“He gave me the liberty and the trust to go for it and to take the danger,” Beccari said. “Sometimes you’ve gotten to imagine together with your stomach greater than together with your head.…You will have to navigate together with your instinct.”

Beccari made it clear that the spectacular show destinations are the brainchild of his creative directors.

“They should feel an inspiration,” he explained. “They are available and we discuss together where is the show after which they explain why. After which we attempt to put at their disposal all of the means to do something necessary, something impactful. Since the shows are necessary not due to the 1,500 people attending, but for the 120 million, 150 million people watching at home.”

A native of Parma, Italy, Beccari began his profession in international marketing at consumer products giant Reckitt Benckiser in Milan. He went on to work for Parmalat in Recent York for a few 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 vp of communications and marketing with worldwide responsibilities. He dramatically developed each the accessories and ready-to-wear businesses, working with the then-artistic director Marc Jacobs, and rose within the ranks to change into executive vp.

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 daring step of creating the Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana, aka “the Square Colosseum,” into the home’s recent corporate headquarters.

He was moved to the management helm of Dior in 2017 and continued his streak of daring moves.

Within the interview, he revealed that he’s received several offers to return and work in fast-moving consumer goods in very high positions lately.

But he rebuffed them, saying he’s smitten with the luxurious sector.

“I discovered a world that I like increasingly since it gives you the possibility to satisfy incredible people having a big impact on society and on creativity: artists, creative directors, architects,” he enthused. “You’re involved in in things that folks care about, that touches the emotions of individuals. 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 corporate in 1947,” he said. “The desirability of today is the sales of tomorrow.…I wouldn’t put limits to the expansion of this sacred brand.”