Almost Summer 2025: Kering, Luca De Meo and the Fight Club. Part 1
I investigated with people who know him well...the power of this community is unbelievable.
“What does the money machine eat? It eats youth, spontaneity, life, Beauty and above it all, it eats creativity, it eats quality and sh*ts quantity” - William Burroughs
Dear DeLuxers,
How are you? We started the week on a Sunday evening with a bang.
I was relaxing from an energizing as well as exhausting day horse riding in the countryside between Lucca and Pisa, I am still learning, I am an absolute beginner and I love it very much but every time I consume a lot of energy trying to manage myself and the horse. This time she was a beautiful white “thug” - as my instructor calls her - named Grace, a very reliable, crazy teenager loving grass so much that she had to stop every 5 minutes to eat it. I learned a lot about weak signals and attunement and gentle body talks, kindness and cattyness that made me smile.
And then we started a very long conversation (you know who you are) that took to the news of the year: a Kering Directeur Géneral was going to be appointed soon and the name was…Luca De Meo.
I love the Sunday exchanges with some of you commenting the key facts and sometimes the newsletter, it’s a nice, relaxed way to catch up and inspire each other. And I also love the constant flow of passion and interest that gets here, on my desk, right now that I am writing this piece.
Everything started from here.
The bang was about a decision from FHP that everybody was waiting for and that will take to more changes that we can even imagine. Very much needed changes.
Some of the key questions around the Kering De Meo appointment of the moment are:
while the reason why Kering appointed Luca De Meo as its own DG (while FHP remains P) is clear, why did Luca De Meo accept?
who is really Luca De Meo?
what role can he play at the disgraced French group?
Why Kering hired Luca De Meo from Renault?
Kering relied, since the time when it was PPR, on internal resources coming from the fashion system for top executives roles. With one exception, the one who has been very coldly welcomed by the fashion system