Dior CEO on new Paris store, LVMH head Bernard Arnault and why the ‘anti-metaverse’ is so important

Pietro Beccari is very proud of Dior’s new 30 Avenue Montaigne store, a project also close to Arnault’s heart as it was his first office as a young entrepreneur

Ahead of Dior’s August opening of a new store on Hong Kong’s Canton Road, Beccari says the brand ‘believes in the future of Hong Kong’

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Dior CEO and chairman Pietro Beccari (second left) with (from left) Cara Delevingne, Becaari’s wife Elisabetta Beccari, and Carla Bruni at a Dior show during Paris Fashion Week in 2020. Photo: Getty Images

Published: 5:15pm, 15 Jul 2022Updated: 1:34pm, 22 Jul 2022

If post-Covid “revenge travel” is a thing – as seen in the huge number of people who have taken to the skies in Europe and the United States this summer – French brand Dior has embraced it with gusto.

In the past three months, the fashion label has ferried guests to large-scale runway shows in Seoul, South Korea, not long after the country reopened its borders to international travellers; Los Angeles, California, where it held a men’s runway presentation on Venice Beach; Seville, Spain, where it debuted its 2022/23 cruise collection; and Paris, where it showcased its menswear 2022/23 spring/summer range and its autumn/winter 2022/23 haute couture collection.

Add to that a glamorous high jewellery presentation in Taormina, Sicily, and events in Venice, during the Biennale, and Milan for the Salone del Mobile furniture fair in June, and you’ll understand why Dior’s chief executive and chairman, Pietro Beccari, talks about the label’s “aggressive marketing strategy” in an interview in Paris in early July.

“We’re flooded with information and our competitors are also very active, so we do many things that increase visibility of the brand and make it top of mind for many customers,” Beccari says. “A brand has to be part of a client’s life.”

Dior’s cruise 2023 show in Seville in June.

A crown jewel of luxury group LVMH – owner of brands such as Louis Vuitton, Bulgari and Givenchy – Dior was the first label acquired in 1984 by the then 35-year-old Bernard Arnault. The French entrepreneur has since built an empire and gone on to become the wealthiest man in Europe by reviving long dormant, family-owned luxury houses and turning them into global household names.

While Louis Vuitton is still the cash cow of LVMH, Dior is the more refined sibling, less ostentatious and with a certain allure that is very Parisian.