Benetton artistic director leaves as it seeks return to profit

Italian clothing retailer Benetton said Friday that its creative director Andrea Incontri is leaving the group as part of a wider management overhaul to stem its losses.

In a statement, the company said it is “aiming to define a management team to support its new director general in a new phase of rationalisation and relaunch”.

It said Incontri’s departure was by mutual decision.

The clothing group named Claudio Sforza as director general in late May to replace Massimo Renon, who had been publicly criticised by the company’s 89-year-old founder Luciano Benetton for what he called a “100-million-euro hole” during his four years in charge.

Benetton’s net loss nearly tripled to 230 million euros ($255 million) in 2023.

Incontri was hired by Renon in July 2022 to rejuvenate the group’s collection. Incontri was previously the artistic director of Italian luxury shoe company Tod’s from 2014 to 2019.

Created in 1965 in the northeast of Italy by four siblings, the “United Colors of Benetton” went global in the 1980s with its soft wool sweaters and the shock advertising of photographer Oliviero Toscani.

But the company’s sales have stagnated since the early 2000s.