Don’t Call Milan’s Newest Luxury Hotel a Ferragamo Brand Extension
Photo Caption: A guest room at the Portrait Milano in Milan, Italy. Source: Lungarno Collection.
Skift Take
The conventional wisdom is that it's an easy win for fashion brands to create explicit brand extensions with luxury hotels. But that's wrong, according to the Ferragamo family's hotel group. The debate is fascinating.
The Portrait Milano debuts December 1 in the heart of Milan’s fashion district. The location makes sense, given that the 73-room property belongs to the Lungarno Collection — a group of Italian boutique hotels founded by the family of Italian loafer king, Salvatore Ferragamo.
“The real city center is the fashion district where we are now — one of the most expensive real estate areas in Europe,” said Lungarno’s CEO Valeriano Antonioli. Just one other luxury hotel, Four Seasons Milan, is in this district, and Antonioli aims to capitalize on that exclusivity.
Yet despite the group’s heritage, it doesn’t call Portrait Milano a Ferragamo brand extension.
“We think it’s very difficult to use a hotel to be the direct extension of a fashion brand,” said Antonioli. “Fashion is very volatile. If you want to be truly into fashion, you have to change your shoes or your clothes every six months,
