Kering has just crowned a new prince for Bottega Veneta. His name is Romain Spitzer, he will take up his post on September 1st, and as befits these modern courts we call luxury groups, he will answer to Luca de Meo, CEO of Kering, before finally taking his seat at the table of the executive committee that assembly where one speaks of turnover the way others, once, spoke of God.
He comes from next door, from LVMH, where he reigned over the Perfumes division of the Beauty house, with that quiet authority reserved for men who have proven themselves without ever raising their voice. Here he is now, a defector or rather a migrant, like those birds that change continents without ever changing skies.
His appointment brings to an end months of a rather solemn, and somewhat absurd, quest: all these people searching, since the departure of Bartolomeo Rongone who left in March for Moncler, an exit announced back in January, for the providential man who could breathe new life into a house that, in truth, was hardly short of breath.
Kering, in a statement released this Wednesday after the markets closed that hour when the great houses like to announce their marriages and their successions, praises in him a man who has, they say, tirelessly strengthened the appeal of his brands, encouraged what is modestly called innovation, and led teams scattered to the four corners of the world.
It must be said, the man has a history and a French history at that, which never hurts in this little theater of luxury. A graduate of ESCP, he began, in 1995, at Guerlain, as a product manager that rank of apprentice given to those whose future command is not yet known. He passed through marketing at Jean Paul Gaultier, then at Yves Saint Laurent, before landing in 2006 at Christian Dior, at the head of the Perfumes division, where he forged that reputation one cannot manufacture: that of the expert one listens to.
It was there, they say, that he had a hand in the success of Sauvage that perfume which became, across all categories combined, the best-selling in the world, which is no small thing in a world that mostly sells wind, but wind cleverly bottled. And it is added, in the industry, that he is one of those leaders who are respected without needing to be feared a rare enough thing to be worth noting.
In 2016, he became president of LVMH Fragrance Brands, with Givenchy and Kenzo under his wing; then, little by little, the house of Francis Kurkdjian, Acqua di Parma, Loewe perfumes, Officine Universelle Buly, and a few still-nameless projects were entrusted to him the way one entrusts, to one who has proven himself, always a little more land to cultivate.
One question remains, and I ask it without malice: why on earth does the parent house let such a man go? Perhaps, quite simply, he was too good and we know that courts, even the most modern ones, even those that claim to be above the vanities of old, often prefer to keep around them courtiers a touch less brilliant than their master.
FM