Ferrari Is Shifting Gears Into Fashion and Lifestyle

Italian car manufacturer Ferrari is expanding its range of offerings in an effort to increase its customer base beyond those that love its sleek, sporty cars. The iconic prancing horse logo that has long been associated with high-powered luxury sports cars has made its debut on the catwalk and simultaneously opened a restaurant.

Earlier this month, members of the Italian style world were admitted to the Ferrari headquarters in the small Italian town of Maranello. There, what is usually an assembly line for the manufacturer’s famous cars had become a runway, down which high-fashion models stalked to show off the new fashion line.

It was Ferrari’s first high-fashion collection and an ambitious foray away from luxury car company to luxury lifestyle brand

For years, Ferrari has granted leases for other companies to produce merchandise adorned with their logo: Clothing, of course, being the main product. Now, of course, the company is bringing all Ferrari fashion in-house and giving it somewhat more of a luxury feel.

Taking the design process in-house and upmarket, Ferrari has hired Armani and Pal Zilieri alumn, Rocco Iannone, as creative director. The brand has also shut down the majority of its existing licencing deals. Those that will remain under the watchful eye of Iannone are the more high-end collaborations: Puma for sneakers, Ray-Ban for sunglasses and Richard Mille for watches.

Ferrari is at pains to insist that this is not a side project, rather this is a completely new direction for the brand. The parent company, Exor, has increasingly been leaning towards fashion as a lead product of late—it bought a majority stake in an Hermès brand in December and 24 per cent of Christian Louboutin in March.

This recent move may put Exor in the position of being Italy’s answer to French conglomerates LVMH and Kering, who are generally considered the biggest names of luxury in the world.

The fashion exhibited at Ferrari's launch show was distinctively Ferrari—with the brand’s red-and-yellow colour scheme, images of cars and seatbelts working as belts—and John Elkann, the interim CEO of Ferrari and CEO of Exor, is confident that consumers will make the leap from a $30 prancing horse-branded cap to a $1,800 jacket with the same logo.

“There are a lot of people already buying Ferrari-linked products, right?” Elkann said. “So if I give them something better, why wouldn’t they buy it?”

Think of it as something for Ferrari fans who can’t yet afford the $300,000 car, we suppose, but Iannone admits there were challenges to that approach.

“From an aesthetic point of view, in the beginning we have to be very literal with symbols and anatomy in order to legitimise our design territory,” he said.

The CEO delved into Ferrari’s archives to find shapes and details that would work when translated into clothing, as well as the colours and iconography of the brand’s history.

The result was racer-print silks; unisex sportswear jackets in technical fabrics and tyre-tread elbow patches; leather jackets stitched like car seats; and unexpected racing stripes everywhere.

And while there certainly is money to be made, the reach into fashion is more than that—after all, the licensing agreements were extremely profitable. But more than just profit, Ferrari is aiming to enhance its brand to encourage loyalty and longevity.

"Given the kind of scale you need to be profitable in luxury, I don't think this will be accretive to Ferrari's margins, which are quite high already," said Susy Tibaldi, luxury analyst at Swiss bank UBS.

The fashion line will be on sale at Luisaviaroma later this month, but Ferrari’s own storefronts are being renovated to reflect the new direction for the brand and will also have a fashion section.

And it doesn't stop there.

All while launching the fashion line, Ferrari has simultaneously undertaken the reopening of the restaurant, Ristorante Cavallino, in Maranello. Across from the brand's headquarters, founder Enzo Ferrari famously used to dine there with friends and Formula 1 stars. Now helmed by triple Michelin-starred chef Italian chef Massimo Bottura, it's yet another cornerstone of Ferrari’s new lifestyle brand strategy.

Ristorante Cavallino is decorated with Formula One memorabilia and pieces of classic Ferraris, with the prancing horse—cavallino rampante—everywhere.

"It looks good, it looks beautiful," Bottura said of the restaurant.

"I am looking at the past in a critical way, not in a nostalgic one, to bring the best of the past into the future, to renew tradition, exactly as Ferrari does every day."

While all this sounds exciting—and incredibly unique—Ferrari is not the only heritage luxury brand that has expanded horizontally of late.

Bottura himself collaborated with Gucci to open Gucci Osteria da Massimo Bottura in Florence in 2018, a venue they recreated in Beverly Hills last year. Givenchy opened a spa at Hotel Metropole Monte Carlo; Roberto Cavalli is opening up an international chain of five-star hotels; and Armani already has more than a dozen cafés, two restaurants, and several hotels.

Needless to say, the luxury world is shifting. We can't wait to see what happens next.

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