Fendi Casa’s repositioning pays dividends

Fendi Casa is thriving. The Roman luxury label’s furniture line has gone through a complete overhaul, and has been posting “consistent” results, as Alberto Da Passano, CEO of Fashion Furniture Design (FFD), has told FashionNetwork.com. FFD is a joint-venture company set up in 2021 by Design Holding, which owns an 80% stake, and Fendi, holding the remaining 20%, to manage Fendi’s furniture business.

“In 2023, we doubled our revenue. And this year, we got off to a good start. We have huge growth potential. We generate 30% of our sales via our four directly owned monobrand stores, 20% via the monobrand stores we’re operating in partnership, and the rest through our wholesale network,” said Da Passano. Before taking charge of Fendi Casa, Da Passano has had a long career in fashion, working at Saint Laurent, Gucci, Moncler, and Fendi, for which he oversaw the EMEA region until 2021.

The Fendi Casa line was introduced in 1987, and was previously developed and run under licence by an Italian company, Luxury Living Group. When the licence contract expired three years ago, Fendi decided to change strategy and set up FFD, which currently employs 60 people. “Fendi Casa has radically changed. We have kept only a handful of best-sellers from the old line. The collection has been revised and revamped extensively. A great deal of work has gone into better expressing the label’s codes, bringing the furniture line closer to Fendi’s fashion style,” said Da Passano.

“It’s a high-quality project with painstaking attention to details, to the finishings and materials’ combinations. The products are no longer characterised in terms of a specific market. The collection is more sophisticated. We’ve differentiated the line by offering modular, original solutions,” he added. For example, some of the cabinets’ shelves are detachable, and table legs come in either marble or metal. They are interchangeable, and can be positioned in two different ways. A cocktail cabinet is integrated within a sofa as a low table. The sofas’ retail prices start from approximately €20,000.

Selective distribution

“Right from the start, we’ve opted to be present only in select, high-quality stores. We’d rather have fewer of them, but in major cities and key locations,” said Da Passano. Fendi Casa inaugurated its first flagship store in the heart of Milan in 2022. Since then, it opened a concession at Harrods in London, a store in Miami and another in Shanghai, but doesn’t have an e-shop. As well as the furniture line, recently augmented by a range of rugs and cushions, Fendi stores are also selling the label’s luxury tableware line.

In addition to these four directly managed stores, Fendi Casa’s retail network includes another 50 addresses, between retail corners, shop-in-shops, and monobrand stores run in partnership with local operators around the world. The label’s strategy is to have only one distributor in each country. A bold approach, as brands are often looking for high volumes in the furniture segment. Further store openings are planned in Singapore, Seoul, Djakarta, Cambodia, Chengdu in China, Riyadh and Dubai. Adopting a selective strategy has enabled Fendi Casa to strike a balance between countries. China remains the line’s main market, but its share of revenue has dropped from 45% to 30%. The rest is shared out equally between the Americas, Europe and the Middle East.

For Milan Design Week, Fendi Casa has unveiled a new collection, notably featuring the F-Affair range of sofas and chairs developed with the Controvento design studio, distinctive for the interlocking F pattern in different textures, and the F-Stripes sofa, designed with Palomba Serafini. The new collection is further evidence of FFD’s craftsmanship skills. The line is entirely manufactured in Italy by FFD at its own factory in Brianza, north of Milan, and with various contractors. The furniture items are developed both in-house and in collaboration with renowned designers like Marcel Wanders, Toan Nguyen, and Botswana artist Peter Mabeo, whose Efo coffee table has become a best-seller.

“During Design Week, we meet our clients, our distributors and the press from all over the world. The Milan Furniture Fair generates many more contacts than a fashion week. Everyone’s here, business professionals and consumers. It’s a major showcase, and a key occasion for us,” concluded Da Passano.