Marco De Vincenzo is new Etro creative chief, accessories will be key

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
May 25, 2022

Etro, the luxury Italian label controlled by the L Catterton fund, has named Marco De Vincenzo as its new creative director. Starting early next month, he’ll be in charge of the women's, men's and home collections.

His first mainline collection will be shown for SS23 during September’s Milan Fashion Week.

The company said that Veronica, Kean and Jacopo Etro will continue to be involved in the development of the brand’s strategy in partnership with L Catterton.

The new creative chief was a graduate of the European Institute of Design in Rome at the start of this century and then worked with Fendi on its key accessory offer.

His own women’s RTW label was launched in 2009, in which year he also won the Who Is On Next? prize organised by Altaroma and Vogue Italia.

Etro CEO Fabrizio Cardinali said the appointment is part of the brand’s new course and hailed his feel for colour, print and fabrics. He said De Vincenzo will be able to interpret the brand’s heritage while adding newness and — importantly — giving a new push to world of accessories.

Accessories, with their higher margins, are key to luxury brands’ profitability.

The designer’s arrival at Etro is the latest — and most-high-profile — in a series of senior hires at the label that recently also named Iacopo Martini as its CFO and Alberto Candellero to the newly created post of chief commercial and sustainability officer.

The brand was founded in 1968 by Gerolamo Etro and currently has around 140 stores in 58 countries. It also has 20 travel retail locations. While these will have been challenged by the pandemic-linked events of the past few years, as much of the world gets back to normal, they should take on a revived importance. And with that accessories strategy being key to the future, that should add still further to the key position of the travel retail outlets in the firm’s store line-up.