Ferragamo’s designer Maximilian Davis wants the brand to feel ‘relatable’

Can one of Britain’s hottest young talents revive an Italian heritage house? That was the punchy bet placed by Marco Gobbetti, who, only a few months after joining Ferragamo as chief executive in January 2022, tapped young designer Maximilian Davis to lead its creative direction, marking the 28-year-old’s first time at the creative helm of a publicly traded company.
Now two years in, Davis, a trained ready-to-wear designer, says he is starting to find his feet at the 97-year-old house, which has its origins in footwear and leather goods. This is evident in the growing ease with which he takes inspiration from the archives and breathes new life into accessories, such as the Hug bag and Zina ballerinas.
“They’re our number ones in sales worldwide,” beams Davis over a video call (he splits his time between Milan and Florence, but, when we speak over the summer, he is preparing to come back to his native Manchester). “The ‘Star’ bag [another top-selling style] was actually designed for men, but we now see female clients buying into them as well. Over the next few collections, we will introduce more deconstructed, softer versions as we expand our lines.”
While these are positive developments for Ferragamo, which derives almost 87 per cent of its business from shoes and handbags, it hasn’t been enough to give the brand the boost it needs. Revenues in the first six months of 2024 dropped 12.8 per cent to €523 million (US$580.15 million; S$753.09 million). Net profits also took a hit, falling 73.2 per cent to €6 million in the same period. Gobbetti attributes the recent losses to a challenging Asia-Pacific market and weak wholesale channel.
“People are buying much more consciously and are not spending in a way that they were three or four years ago,” says Davis, referencing an industry-wide slowdown where the biggest luxury players, including LVMH, Kering and Richemont, are experiencing a setback in growth. Still, it’s not impossible for brands to emerge unscathed — look at Brunello Cucinelli or Ermenegildo Zegna.
Salvatore Ferragamo founded the company in 1927 with a focus on women’s footwear. His wife Wanda oversaw the business after his death in 1960 and led its expansion into new categories, such as leather goods and ready-to-wear. The family remain the brand’s owners, with a 65 per cent stake. Leonardo, one of the couple’s children, sits on the board of directors as chair.
Ferragamo’s desire to attract new, younger audiences without alienating its long-standing clientele has required something of a balancing act from Davis, a London College of Fashion graduate, who put his two-year-old eponymous label (which earned him a spot as a LVMH Prize semi-finalist) on hold when he was hired by Ferragamo.
Davis’s 2022 debut show, a tribute to Ferragamo’s storied career as a shoemaker to stars such as Audrey Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe, felt like the beginning of something special. His latest collection, for autumn/winter 2024, took inspiration from the 1920s and the wardrobes of women, such as Joan Crawford and Greta Garbo, who embraced masculine silhouettes. Inspired by Ferragamo’s use of unconventional materials including cellophane wrappers and sea-leopard skin, Davis showed a dress that resembled cascading fish scales but were, in fact, hand-sewn layers of leather.
Among the key changes under Ferragamo’s new leadership has been a revised logo, which dropped “Salvatore” and comes in a minimal, all-caps typeface (a growing font trend among luxury brands, including Saint Laurent, Celine and Burberry) instead of the cursive scrawl by the house’s founder. The brand also now presents its men’s and women’s collections together.
“This was a conversation that Marco and I had, about the strongest way for people to understand the identity of the brand,” says Davis. He adds that there is crossover in his designs for both genders. “It’s about building a silhouette that is transversal and works for men and women.”
For his upcoming spring/summer 2025 show, taking place on Saturday, Davis has looked to the archives once more. He’s coy about what to expect, but offers: “It’s a moment to educate existing and new clients on the heritage of the brand and what Ferragamo has built.”
Despite the brilliance of Ferragamo’s runways, its retail has yet to catch up. On a walk past the brand’s boutique on London’s Bond Street, I felt that the merchandising was somewhat stuck in time and did not align with Davis’s forward-looking vision. The same could be said for Ferragamo’s approach to marketing, which feels underinvested outside of fashion week. “It’s something that we definitely are working on,” says Davis. “These adjustments take time, in terms of building the team and getting the infrastructure correct.”
I wondered if resistance from the Ferragamo family had been a reason for the slow change. Far from it, says Davis. “The plan that Marco and I put together, even before we joined, was something that the family believed in and have been very supportive. They have given us the time and freedom to change the brand in a way that still pays respect to its heritage but [allows for] a new direction, which we believe will bring in new clients.”
Macro-environmental uncertainty has required taking a safer, more familiar approach, Davis explains. Customers increasingly prefer clothing that is “more casual, and also a lot more wearable”. That realness is also reflected in Ferragamo’s marketing: Its latest campaign, featuring muse Lina Zhang and scholar Maia Tellit Hawad among others, photographed on the streets of Florence, should feel “a lot more relatable”, he says. “We wanted people to look at the campaign and be able to see themselves.”
For any heritage brand that might have been labelled as slow or stubborn, Davis is determined to prove the opposite with Ferragamo. Since the start of the year, the brand has become more agile in responding to customer needs, he says. “Rather than introducing a collection to the stores each season, we’ll advance pieces if we see a pick-up on certain products, colourways or fabrications. We are reacting to our clients in a more efficient way.”
Davis’s shared ambition with Gobbetti is to make Ferragamo “more of a lifestyle brand”. That begins with having multigenerational appeal by offering something that is “suitable for everyone”, he believes. “Ferragamo started as a shoe brand, so we have clients that come in for their first pair of shoes for school or university, while other people come to us for a wedding or birthday.”
Dependability is core to how Davis operates. “You have to make sure you’re adapting with what’s happening [but] as a creative, I tend to stay true to who I am. I still have the same team, who supported me from the very beginning and helped build my own brand, so much that Ferragamo noticed and wanted to take me onboard for this position. I believe that consistency and loyalty is something that I create [at the brand].”
Kati Chitrakorn © 2024 The Financial Times
This article originally appeared in The Financial Times