In February, the Italian luxury group of Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana announced the internalization of its beauty and perfumery activities, until now managed through licenses and valued at around 1 billion euros, through the creation of Dolce & Gabbana Beauty, led by Alfonso Dolce, as CEO, and by Gianluca Toniolo, as Chief Operating Officer. The latter explains the first steps in the development of this new unit, since the group has just inaugurated two large spaces dedicated to beauty in its Milanese stores in Via della Spiga and Via Montenapoleone.
Vousmag.com: What is the concept behind opening these first two beauty corners?
Gianluca Toniolo: We want to dedicate a lot of space to these product categories and not relegate them to a corner, as is often the case. The Via della Spiga corner occupies 30 square meters with windows facing the street, the Via Montenapoleone corner occupies 34 square meters, each with two dedicated people: a shop assistant specializing in make-up and another to tell the story of fragrances.
VOUS: Will there be beauty zones in all of your stores?
GT: The idea is to have them in the largest stores in our main markets. In some regions, such as the Middle East and Asia, we are looking into opening D&G stores dedicated to beauty.
VOUS: How are you structured and where are your teams located?
GT: We will soon move to a new building in Milan, located in Via Kramer. Right now we have 120 employees. But the goal is to increase the teams. I am recruiting a young and international team all the time.
VOUS: What are your goals in terms of billing?
GT: We are only at the beginning of this adventure! We want to send a strong message. This project is also born to create strong links with the house also through this category of products and transform Dolce & Gabbana into a true lifestyle brand. It should be noted that we are the first Italian fashion group that manages beauty internally.
VOUS: What is your price positioning?
GT: Of course, we are in the high-end segment, but we are going to segment the market into different age categories to also capture younger consumers, among whom there is a new fashion for perfumes.
VOUS: What are your development plans?
GT: Our development plan is very rich, with a very aggressive release schedule. Next year we will have strategic launches in fragrances. The goal is to remake 80% of the fragrance catalog in two years. We also plan to launch new products in the makeup category in the second half of 2023.