Vegas Magazine - Niche Media - There is a place beyond the crowds, beyond the ropes, where dreams are realized and success is celebrated. You are invited.
Issue link: http://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/175899
"I LIKED THAT THE PEOPLE WHO WORKED ON THE CASHMERE MIGHT DO SO WHILE LOOKING AT A BEAUTIFUL FRESCO." —BRUNELLO CUCINELLI business in this once-sleepy hamlet, and from the start, he says, fans of the brand have journeyed not just to buy his hand-loomed wares and other Italian-crafted clothes, but to buy them in Solomeo. "People have always understood that this is a special place," Cucinelli says. "Like I first did, they fell in love with the ambience, the atmosphere, of this little village. The location where you work does make a difference at the end of the day. Here it's not so hard as it's supposed to be." You won't encounter the over-the-top, replicated Italian splendor of, say, the Bellagio or Venetian, but Solomeo is unquestionably a magical place, a postcard-worthy example of an Italian hill town that can trace its roots back to the 14th century, although since Cucinelli's arrival it has enjoyed something of a renaissance. In 1985 he looked at the centuries-old stone buildings and saw his future, and even more so the concept of creating the ideal work-life balance for his family and the local residents, whether or not they fell under his employ. He started by purchasing the building at the very top of the hill, the medieval stone fortress known as Castle Solomeo, preserving its frescoed walls and oversize fireplaces while modernizing the building and dividing the spaces into workrooms and offices to house his headquarters. "I liked that the people who worked on the cashmere might do so while looking at a beautiful fresco," Cucinelli says. "I remember thinking this could be a beautiful part of the creative process." L ittle by little he took on the adjacent buildings, always preserving while converting, creating offices and workrooms as needed, as well as that pair of boutiques, one showcasing his women's collection, the other his men's. Adjacent to the men's store is a dining hall where lunch is prepared—on this day, heaping bowls of pasta and grilled vegetables, wine, and cheese—by three women tasked with buying local produce and serving the feast on long wooden tables set up each day for the Solomeo employees, whose 90-minute break also accommodates the Italian custom of an afternoon rest at home with family. A voracious reader and student of philosophy, Cucinelli is devoted to a humanist viewpoint, which extends to embrace the humanities—theater, literature, music—all of which he supports through a complex he has christened Forum of the Arts. It includes an amphitheater, where a music festival is held each July, and a new theater academy and library he built in 2008 at the edge of town. Where does he acquire the funds for such undertakings? From his business. Once his manufacturing and operations were all centrally located in and around Solomeo, Cucinelli committed 20 percent of his company's profits to the town's restoration, a practice that continues to this day. As he reasoned, one feeds the other: Build the town, and the brand grows with it; grow the brand, and the town prospers. Today Brunello Cucinelli is indeed a rapidly growing global brand. He took his company public in April and can boast 80 boutiques around the world, as well as a presence in more than 1,000 multibrand retailers in the US, including Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. Long after he had begun to achieve success with his vision for Solomeo, he opened his first Las Vegas location, at Crystals at CityCenter in 2009, which quickly vaulted into the top ranks of his US stores—all the more notable given that period's economic struggles. Such a feat also seems to leave Cucinelli unfazed. "In Las Vegas the multiethnicity of our customers is very high, because they're coming there from all over the world," he says. "What they have in common is a desire for luxury and handcraft. And in addition to feeling very international, it's also a resort city with a sporty-chic kind of taste, and that fits very well into what we do." Cucinelli has indeed created a lifestyle brand for men and women that seems to put the accent on easy luxury, as in effortless knit dresses in an earthy palette of terra-cotta, gray, and muted turquoise and, for men, tactile suede jackets and perfectly tailored khakis. And always the cashmere takes center stage, born of the soft hairs combed from baby goats in Mongolia before making its way to Perugia, where Cucinelli employs more than 2,000 artisans—600 in Solomeo, the remainder in the surrounding region—to spin and dye and weave these gossamer fibers into sweaters and other knits that will be finished in these workrooms. This is a craft well known in this part of Italy, precisely the reason Cucinelli wanted to base his business here. "We have a centuries-old heritage in this field, and when a tradition is that specific to a place, everything becomes just a little bit easier," he says. "If you buy the Champagne from the people who have been producing it for 500 years, it's a good Champagne, yes? You trust that they know what they're doing. I wanted to create a similar environment for my artisans, for the people who give their talents every day to the cashmere. If I can add a little moral and economic dignity to their work, then we have a beautiful product they're proud of and everything is a little easier." The son of a farmer, the 60-year-old Cucinelli grew up about 10 kilometers from Solomeo in Castel Rigone. His family wasn't wealthy, and he admits that he thinks about those early struggles when considering how to create a company that's wholly modern while never losing its familydriven heart. It's perhaps very Italian to note that it was love that brought Cucinelli to Solomeo. His 112 VEGASMAGAZINE.COM 110-113_V_Feat_Cucinelli3_Oct13.indd 112 9/18/13 2:01 PM