Natural Equity, Territory Enhancement Are the New Luxury
MILAN – “Natural equity is a very sophisticated form of luxury.”
So believes Marco Boglione, founder and chairman of BasicNet Group, the company that operates brands including K-Way and Superga. He’s talking from experience, having given a new life to the private island of Culuccia, off the coast of Sardinia, Italy.
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Along with his wife Stella, Boglione bought the island in 2017, with the goal to protect its natural environment and undeveloped state rather than turn it into an ostentatious property.
“When you wonder ‘What is luxury?’ Luxury is what gives you pleasure… and there are different forms of it: there is the luxury that exists out of living well, of eating well, of drinking well, of dressing well. But the feeling of privilege and luxury that nature gives you — and not just the [beauty of] a landscape but the culture [built on it], is something that, as far as I’m concerned, is very high profile,” said Boglione in a panel moderated by WWD Milan bureau chief Luisa Zargani.
Boglione said his encounter with the island was “love at first sight. But no one was thinking of purchasing the property, I didn’t even think it could be on sale,” he recalled.
At the time, he was advised by his colleagues to stay away from such a deal. “They told me I was crazy, but that’s not news to me,” he joked. “When my notary asked why I wanted to buy it, I told him it was like buying a painting: you hang it on the wall and watch it every night. In this case, I don’t even have to hang it, I live on it,” said Boglione.
“It’s a natural artwork. And you proceed treating it like a painting: you keep it clean, if needed you restore it, you rediscover it and that gives you a great joy,” he said.
In their aim to revitalize the island and keep its tradition and culture alive, the Bogliones also set up Biru Agricola, which produces agri-food of the highest quality while respecting the landscape and the history of Culuccia. This encompasses Vermentino wine, oil, myrtle, gin, honey and even oysters recognized for their superior taste.
A similar motivation spurred Ferruccio Ferragamo to infuse new life into the Il Borro property in Tuscany in the ‘90s.
“He fell in love with this medieval village,” recalled daughter Vittoria Ferragamo, who’s currently manager, sustainability and special projects for Il Borro Toscana. “When I was a little girl I used to go hunting there with him and he used to tell me everything about this place, its history and territory. And that’s what he envisioned long-term: to [make people] rediscover this place, do research and analysis on the soil and climate and [combine] a hospitality project with production, with the first challenges being the wine-making,” said Ferragamo.
Ever since, the Ferragamos have enhanced what the territory had to offer with a sustainable approach, implementing initiatives aimed at circularity as well as offering products sourced locally.
The family found a kindred spirit in executive chef Andrea Campani, who has known those lands since childhood, as he was born and grew up roughly nine miles from Il Borro.
“So when there was the opportunity to be able to do something important in a place where both my friends and I and my family had grown up and with which we had this truly intense bond, [I took the chance and] that interview [with the Ferragamos] took five minutes, there was an instant connection,” said Campani, who has been collaborating with Il Borro for 11 years.
“We have the chickens, the eggs, the wheat to make the flour, everything is here. Imagine a chef who has the opportunity to work in a company that self-produces essentials like these,” said Campani, adding that the Ferragamos revamped activities and production that were set to disappear and implemented a farm-to-table approach in this hospitality project.
“We were about 35 to 40 people in 2013, while now there are 220 to 240 people among employees, collaborators and consultants,” said Campani, underscoring that 85 percent of this staff hails from the nearby area. “For us the garden and the farm mean community. Bringing these [goods] to the table means to bring them to other people, hence to continue to promote them and bring our traditions and culture everywhere,” said the chef, mentioning the Il Borro Tuscan Bistro restaurants opened in 2017 and 2022 in Dubai and Crete, Greece, respectively.
Enhancing the territory is a cultural mission also for Laudomia Pucci, president of Emilio Pucci Hermitage and the mastermind behind the Palazzo N6 project housed in her family’s historic palace in Florence.
Standing on the central Via de’ Pucci, the frescoed location has been in the family for six centuries and now offers private tours of the fashion archives, artistic showcases and custom dining curated by Pucci’s personal chef using local and seasonal ingredients.
“I realized that being born and growing up in a family palazzo with so much history is unusual. For me it was obvious but for the entire world it isn’t,” said Pucci. “So I tried to put together different elements: the history, the archive, the family. I did a synthesis of what [this] territory has to offer. Florence offers a history… my father has been one of the founders of Italian fashion. I have the archives, I have a building, so I thought: let’s do a puzzle and narrate all these elements.”
For Pucci, it was also a way to offer a different experience in a city impacted by over-tourism. “We don’t sell a product, we tell a story,” she said, underscoring the importance of making the location come alive by setting up an atelier with working artisans, for one. To be sure, Pucci offered to the nearby school Istituto Europeo di Design five rooms for students to set up sewing machines and restore the spaces as ateliers as it was from the mid-1950s to the mid-1980s.
“Today everything is digital, but I want a real world,” said Pucci, adding that this approach also guided her bold design choices, like juxtaposing pastel carpeting, contemporary furniture and modern artworks against the Renaissance frescoes for maximum impact.
“And now I have the good fortune of having Michelin-starred chef Vito Mollica joining us because he liked this story, he found it authentic,” said Pucci. “It’s a different approach that has given a different input to Florence and a new passion and joy to me,” she concluded.
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