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On 27 September, Vogue Business hosted ‘The digital Silk Road: Pioneering the future of luxury lifestyles’ event in partnership with China’s fastest-growing lifestyle platform Xiaohongshu. This followed the first digital excellence summit that was hosted in Paris earlier this year.
Taking place amid the splendour of the Palazzo Serbelloni, the Milan event opened with a keynote interview with Off-White CEO Cristiano Fagnani and closed with a fireside chat with Sergio Rossi CEO Helen Wright. The event, which also took place at the peak of Milan Beauty Week, welcomed Simone Dominici, CEO of Kiko Milano, and speakers from L’Oréal Italy, Veja and luxury furnishing brands B&B Italia and Artemest. Alongside panel discussions featuring digital media experts from Xiaohongshu, the agenda brought a blend of brands across different lifestyle verticals to create a truly holistic exploration of what luxury lifestyles look like today, and the role of digital innovation in the path to purchase and beyond.
To open the event, Vogue Business head of custom insights Anusha Couttigane interviewed Fagnani of Off-White, the luxury streetwear label founded by the late Virgil Abloh. During the conversation, Fagnani discussed the brand’s namesake and its ethos of existing in the “grey spaces in between” different cultures. Having come from Nike, Fagnani also shared insights from Off-White’s collaborative strategy, which has included tie-ups with Nike, Jimmy Choo, Converse and even Vogue: “At the core of the collaboration is the idea that 1 + 1 = 3… Off-White was created to be itself, a platform for nurturing ideas, connecting people, creating a space in the industry that was new and challenging the status quo.”
Fagnani added that in the last 12 months, Off-White has brought to life partnerships with influencers and celebrities, for example dressing Beyoncé and her dancers on stage and kitting out Usher for his half-time show at the Super Bowl, one of the most important media moments in the US. Collaboration also transcends products. Fagnani referenced the Imaginary FM radio station that Off-White created to platform emerging musicians and give them access to the brand’s audience. Ultimately, he said, “digital is oxygen” and it will continue to play a key role in the brand’s outreach strategy.
In the first panel, looking at the microcultures driving engagement in influencer marketing, Vogue Business in China’s editorial director Yiling Pan hosted a discussion with Chloé Souchaire, head of advocacy and influence at L’Oréal Italy; Enrico Pasi, global commercial director at Veja; Marco Deseri, chief digital officer at Artemest; and Shawn Li, General Manager of Durable Consumption (including home & furnishing), Xiaohongshu. To begin, Souchaire spoke about holistic attitudes towards beauty, meaning it’s not just about achieving a look, but also feeling healthy and empowered. She also spoke about the need for brands to balance viral moments with authenticity and to ensure they are right for your brand. This challenge, she said, requires brands to be “cultural meteorologists, to predict where the next storm is coming from”.
Pasi spoke about the journey that Veja products make from factories in Brazil to distributors in France. The footwear brand’s commitment to sustainability also means there’s a relationship with nature, a major factor influencing its shoppers. Additionally, the sneaker brand’s relevance to sports culture and outdoor pursuits also brings the wearer closer to the outdoor world — for example, its expansion into hiking boots, which creates a brand-centric community around themes such as the great outdoors and protecting the environment.
Related to this idea of community and sustainability, Deseri, whose company Artemest specialises in curating luxury home and decorative products made by Italian artisans designers, spoke about the aims of the business in disrupting the traditional marketplace of luxury home goods. “At the beginning, we only had digital tools to engage with audiences, and niche audiences especially, because we started with small artisans that basically had no other way of selling the products. This built up our muscle in learning about digital tools, social media, content marketing, email marketing, SEO and paid marketing, which represented our first phase of growth.” However, he said, the company quickly realised that digital alone is not enough, leading it to open its first showroom in New York. Over time, it has experimented with other tools, for example augmented reality, for a small selection of its inventory. While fashion products can be easily shipped to and from consumers, Deseri highlighted that as AR scales it will be invaluable for the furnishing sector, as these goods cannot be easily transported, so the ability to virtually visualise furnishing in one’s home environment holds huge appeal for consumers.
Meanwhile, Xiahongshu’s Li explained how data from the platform can be used to segment shoppers into different life stages to predict their home decor and furnishing needs, with groups like the “nomadic youth”, who are 18 to 25-year-old renters, requiring more soft furnishing or high-frequency decor changes, while “home curators” are homeowners over 30 in their forever homes, with a fixed aesthetic vision.
In the second panel, Pan led a discussion on digital innovation with Kiko Milano’s Dominic, Tommaso Vincenzetti, CMO of B&B Italia, and Jayden Wu, head of healthcare and wellness at Xiaohongshu. Together, they explored the new digital tools that brands are investing in to elevate the customer experience. As part of Kiko Milano’s rapid transformation from a brick-and-mortar business to a truly omnichannel brand, the company launched its e-commerce platform four years ago. More recently, it has introduced a “foundation finder” to discover the perfect skin tone, a skincare advisory programme and a virtual try-on for cosmetics. “Virtual try-on is the one working the best… Within our community online, 11 per cent have tried virtual try-on recently and the conversion rate moved from 2.4 per cent to 7.5 per cent,” said Dominic. The average basket value has also tripled.
Meanwhile, at B&B Italia, Vincenzetti spoke about the development of its design service, which is a digital tool embedded in its website that connects shoppers to key design partners. This allows them to book virtual or IRL appointments so that customers can access personal consultations with interior designers. He highlighted that most of the time, it’s not enough to just talk about the commission of a sofa or a table, but it’s important to talk about the project. More often than not, the need for a bespoke piece of furniture is part of a wider home renovation project, and this highly tailored service gives B&B Italia a much better understanding of the full creative vision of a customer and their holistic lifestyle needs.
However, digital innovation is not limited to the online experience. Wu shared a case study of Don Julio Tequila, which worked with Xiaohongshu to launch in the Chinese market via a partnership that drove footfall to various destinations. Through Xiaohongshu trends data, the businesses highlighted two key behaviours — younger shoppers’ preference for cocktails and their love of exploring cities by foot. With this information in mind, they curated a series of top bars in Shanghai and developed a walking tour that consumers could follow using Xiaohongshu, featuring different participating bars that they could swing by en route to try Don Julio cocktails. The activation has significantly improved the brand penetration in China.
In the penultimate session, Cynthia Zhong, head of luxury at Xiaohongshu, gave a presentation on the many capabilities that Xiaohongshu offers, from impactful influencer marketing to predictive analytics for product purchases. She also highlighted trends such as self-reward and self-gifting, as well as engagement with brand content such as runway shows. The presentation included several case studies of brands that are successfully working with Xiaohongshu, including Louis Vuitton, which has quickly become a luxury leader on the platform.
For the closing fireside chat, Couttigane interviewed Wright of iconic Italian footwear label Sergio Rossi. The heritage brand is undergoing a radical transformation that includes the elevation of video storytelling and new product development. Highlights from its transformation strategy include its most recent autumn campaign, with beautifully crafted equestrian-themed visuals that bring riding boots into the spotlight. Wright explained that while to younger generations the equestrian sensibility might seem new, it’s actually something that has long been part of the Sergio Rossi DNA, but is being revived in fresh formats. “That idea came about because it’s legitimate to the brand and it felt right. It comes back to the fact that our woman is someone who is elegant and strong. A lot of the metaphor of that spirit of the horse is captured by the campaign.”
Wright finished by highlighting that, compared to other renowned Italian brands like Gucci and Prada, Sergio Rossi is relatively small, “but we are absolutely mighty in terms of ambition and in terms of dedication”. She added: “Sometimes passion can be the mother of innovation. It makes us resourceful and resilient… It makes us come up with things that are left of field, think about things in a different way and opens us up to all possibilities.”
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