How a Little Italian Lodge Turned a International Style Model

It began with a toilet renovation.

In 2005, Marie-Louise Sciò, recent out of finding out structure on the Rhode Island College of Design, had no ambitions to enter the hospitality enterprise. However when her father, Roberto Sciò, requested her to transform one of many washrooms at Il Pellicano — the mid-century resort on the Argentario coast of Tuscany that he had owned since 1979 — she accepted the problem.

“Then I actually began stepping into it,” she mentioned. By 2007, Sciò, a tall brunette with a transparent sense of style and a world sensibility, had begun a revamp of your complete property, the place her mates from the artwork and style worlds, impressed by its mixture of classic allure and trendy sophistication, had been coming to stick with rising frequency. She recruited Juergen Teller to {photograph} the scene — populated by the likes of Margherita Missoni, Vladimir Restoin Roitfield and Giovanna Battaglia Engelbert — impressed by photos that Slim Aarons and John Swope had taken on the resort within the Sixties when it opened. In 2011, she printed a espresso desk ebook that includes photos from all three photographers.

“That [book] was an enormous recreation changer by way of notion,” mentioned Sciò, who was named chief govt in 2012. “It put [Il Pellicano] on the map for a complete new group of individuals.”

Over the previous decade, Sciò has helped to redefine the highest finish of the hospitality pyramid as shopper expectations have developed. Lovely places, consolation and unimpeachable service are not sufficient to entice a complicated set of high-net value travellers: they need model, too.

In recent times, luxurious manufacturers like Armani and Bulgari have pushed into resorts in an effort to draw high-net-worth customers occupied with spending an rising quantity of their disposable revenue on experiences. On the identical time, hospitality ventures like Soho Home and Ace have taken a extra design-driven strategy, hiring in-demand architects and inside specialists to create distinctive environments, in addition to savvy consumers to inventory their retail shops with under-the-radar style labels somewhat than typical vacationer tchotchkes .

None have managed to do it fairly like Sciò, who has prolonged her resort model into style, beginning with Pellicano Group’s merch — like a canine mattress rendered in its signature yellow stripes — and increasing into collaborations. A 2019 partnership with Birkenstock was an on the spot hit — so profitable that the shoemaker, now owned by L Catterton, developed a model of the wildly well-liked raffia double-strap model designed with Sciò for its major assortment.

That very same summer time, Il Pellicano hosted a pop-up with Matchesfashion, the primary place you possibly can purchase the collaboration on-line, on the resort’s yacht. “We like to seek out companions who’re equally minded to us,” mentioned Matchesfashion CEO Paolo De Cesare, noting that the group’s resorts are stunning, subtle and full of life: an excellent place to host prime purchasers. (This yr, the 2 firms as soon as once more partnered, this time on a tour of Rome, Florence, Naples and Ischia, together with a four-day occasion at a Pellicano-managed resort. The “Grand Tour II” was promoted closely by either side, together with via Sciò’s personal Instagram account, which boasts greater than 63,000 followers.)

It didn’t harm that Pellicano group’s “fashionisation” got here simply as resortwear was rising as a big year-round class for a lot of style manufacturers.

Sciò’s ambitions to make Il Pellicano and sister property La Posta Vecchia — a villa close to Rome beforehand owned by J. Paul Getty — greater than a resort group proved fortuitous when, on the peak of the pandemic in June 2020, she launched Issimo, a full-fledged e-commerce website devoted to Italian meals, design and style.

Two years within the making, it gave locked-down customers a possibility to purchase every thing from an €88 Pellicano-branded tote — full of a moka pot, freshly floor espresso beans and Krumiri Rossi cookies — to a pair of €625 satin flights designed completely for the positioning by Aquazzura.

“It was a complicated transfer,” mentioned Sean O’Neill, senior hospitality editor at Skift, a journey business intelligence firm. “It is sensible as a result of the audiences for the resort expertise and for the style expertise really overlap.” The positioning generated over a half one million euros in income in 2020, a big sum in a yr when Italian resorts had been laborious hit.

However the website was greater than a pandemic band-aid, in accordance with Sciò. Whereas Issimo will make up solely about 3 % of the group’s general income in 2022 — a bit of over €800,000 — it’s helped to boost model consciousness globally, with 88 % of gross sales coming from outdoors Italy. After signing an settlement to handle one other Italian seaside resort, Mezzatorre in Ischia — a picturesque volcanic island close to Naples — in 2021, the corporate is on observe to generate practically €27 million in income this yr, up from €22 million in 2019.

A part of that progress has to do with a increase in summer time journey to Europe, pushed largely by prosperous People, with occupancy charges at luxurious resorts nearing 2019 ranges, in accordance with STR, an business information tracker. (In Italy, the common each day price for a room was greater than €630 in Could, in accordance with preliminary information, up from €483 in the identical month in 2019.)

It’s additionally all the way down to Sciò’s savvy. She understands what makes for an attractive model, has the proper connections and has been capable of marry that advertising and marketing acumen with a capability to ship a constant expertise.

“Are you able to genuinely inform a Ritz Carlton from a St Regis from a Waldorf in case you have a look at a room or foyer image?” requested Rob Burgess, editor of UK-based frequent-traveller website Headforpoints.com.

Sciò’s distinctive perspective may make the Pellicano Group a beautiful acquisition goal for not solely hospitality conglomerates chasing cool, but additionally the likes of LVMH and different style teams, which have invested extra in experiential luxurious in recent times.

LVMH at the moment owns lower than 1 % of the general marketplace for luxurious resorts, in accordance with Euromonitor analysis analysed by Bernstein, however views hospitality as a option to deepen connections with prime prospects. When it purchased the Belmond group in 2018 for $2.6 billion, LVMH CFO Jean-Jacques Guiony mentioned there can be alternatives for Belmond to collaborate with different LVMH manufacturers.

“The high-end luxurious resort market continues to be fragmented, with the chance for giant chains and new entrants like LVMH to construct up their portfolios via M&A,” mentioned Bernstein analyst Luca Solca, noting that demand on the excessive finish of the resort market “exploded” this yr.

As for whether or not this family-run enterprise would entertain such a deal: “We’re of curiosity to folks,” Sciò mentioned. “Nevertheless it’s like a wedding. We undoubtedly want to seek out the proper husband.”

Extra reporting by Tamison O’Connor.

Disclosure: LVMH is a part of a gaggle of buyers who, collectively, maintain a minority curiosity in The Enterprise of Style. All buyers have signed shareholders’ documentation guaranteeing BoF’s full editorial independence.