Karl Lagerfeld CEO Pier Paolo Righi on why business is booming

The house of Karl Lagerfeld returned to Pitti this season, after a half-decade hiatus, unspooling its fashion universe and staging a great concert by Victor Ray.

Pier Paolo Righi – Courtesy

The mood was ebullient, busy and unexpected at its installation, and no wonder. While many fashion brands have been buffeted this past year by the Chinese market and global concerns, the house of Karl Lagerfeld is booming.
 
According to its energetic CEO Pier Paolo Righi the brand grew revenues by 9% last year, even while many rival suffered downturns.

The house does not release figures for annual turnover, though market sources indicate that Karl Lagerfeld has comfortably passed the half billion-euro target.
 
Besides a powerful debut for its new Karl Lagerfeld Jeans line, the brand has been expanding both geographically with a slew of new stores in Latin America and vertically. A new deal will see a 61-story Karl Lagerfeld Hotel & Residences tower open in Malaysia.
 
So, FashionNetwork.com sat down with Righi, a lean, hard-charging, Italo-German polyglot for an update on a house which has never looked in better shape five years after the remarkable and towering figure of Lagerfeld passed away.
 
Fashion Network: Why have you decided to return to Pitti this season?

Pier Paolo Righi: Remarkably, it was a decision we took just before Christmas – last minute. We haven’t been there in over five years. But we thought, let’s show the brand in its entirety. Provide a full focus on the DNA.
 
So, we said, ‘Pitti in January, Pitti in four weeks. Let’s got for it!’ And the organizers were very receptive. It just felt like a good moment, when the market and world is challenged to go to Pitti with confidence and spread positivity. Everyone is waiting and watching – so it’s good to have a clear point of view. And we have been very busy and getting lots of positive credit being here.
 
FN: What message do you want to send out about the brand?

PPR: Showing all our different phases but with one voice. We have made a lot of progress and clearly developed Karl Lagerfeld across lots of collections. It’s good to put it all together here.
 
FN: Why is this the moment for an immersive experience?

PPR: That comes from our live act – Victor Ray. Karl was not just about fashion but about artists and talented people creating joint moments. Fashion is a vehicle to do that, so having Victor is a great fully immersive moment. 
 
FN: Why were you keen to work with Victor Ray?

PPR: We worked with him in some events in Berlin and he caught the attention of the crowd in a heartbeat! Victor resonates as a young and upcoming talent, which Karl would have liked. He is a great ambassador.

The new Karl Lagerfeld Jeans store in Madrid – Courtesy

Of course, we also work with Sébastien Jondeau and Amber Valletta as friends of house and family, and now also with Calum Harper, a creator on TikTok. We want to keep a family venture and link back to Karl’s life and work. Or with people he would have chosen if he were round today.

FN: What new collabs’ have you in the pipeline? 

PPR: Less co-branding and more residential hospitality, with several coming up. Though our best new venture is Karl Lagerfeld Jeans. Business doubled last year! We created a separate design team under leadership of our creative director Hun Kim, based in Amsterdam. Karl wore jeans a lot and it’s a product that comes naturally to us. We wanted to express his love of black and white denim; skinny jeans for boys and girls, and a certain gender fluidity.
 
We distribute the line differently in a different store concept. Karl Lagerfeld Jeans opened its first store in Madrid about a year ago. And there are more franchise stores for jeans coming, and we will include jeans in our flagships like Regent Street. Plus, its price position is more accessible – jeans sell for between 120 to 190 euros – about 25% less than the main line. It also gave us the possibility to further evolve the main line in terms of aesthetics and sophistication and allow jeans to be quirkier. I think that Karl could like most of these jeans and I think he would wear them!
 
FN: How has the TV Series ‘Becoming Karl Lagerfeld’ affected the brand?

PPR: It has had a positive impact, hard to say how much, but certainly driven attention to the brand. And resonated importantly with a younger audience and reminded them of Karl’s story, and his emergence in the 1960s and 70s. We saw that clicks and searches rose rapidly.
 
FN: Karl had incredible commercial success with both Chanel and Fendi, though his own brand was sometimes more a succès d’estime. Personally, I wrote three stories over three decades about it being sold, starting back in the 80s when the numbers were not good. What have been the key secrets of turning the house into a profitable label?
 
PPR: It all comes back to one of my first conversations with Karl. He had two major points. He said that ‘when I worked for Chanel and Fendi, I must interpret their brand. This house must be my own personal taste.’ And two, he said ‘I want to make the brand accessible – and include people.’ So, to differentiate ourselves, the key was to make people feel welcome in the world of Karl.
 
FN: Most fashion brands have suffered revenue downturns in the past two years. How has KL fared?

PPR: It has been a challenging market environment. However, the way we are positioned ourselves and given access is paying divined. Last year we grew 9% in annual revenues. We don’t release exact sales figures, but I can say that in terms of consumer sales including licenses, the brand globally does 1.5 billion euros annually.
 
The key drivers have been jeans and digital. As the global notoriety of Karl Lagerfeld means we can play on the global market. Digital is solid double-digit growth, and now 30% of all sales. Even if the margins are not a whole lot better than bricks and mortar.

Karl Lagerfeld Jeans Fall/Winter 2025 collection – Courtesy

 
Plus, new geographies like Latin America, where we have opened franchise stores in places like Guatemala, Ecuador or Mexico. Six this year, and eight more in Latin America in 2025.
 
And we continue to be very active in hospitality. Our first Karl Lagerfeld gate community in Spain will open at the end of this year. While in Dubai, we are developing a community of 50 villas. We work with One Atelier, an architectural group based in Milano, that develops the look of whole buildings and includes a Karl Lagerfeld furniture line. The exact look depends on the project. In Dubai, it’s a very brilliant contemporary execution that took inspiration from Karl’s office in rue St Guillaume.  I call it Haussmann for the 21st century! Over in Macao we opened the luxurious Karl Lagerfeld Hotel, and its design has won prizes. 

And, in Malaysia, we are creating a landmark dual use Karl Lagerfeld Hotel and Residences in a 61-story tower in Malacca, to open in 2030. Each of these deals are a blend of design project and a brand license, meaning renewing revenues. It all gives the brand a different dimension – not just apparel, but a living experience. That is what people see when they consider the brand.
 
FN: I have read Karl founded his own house in 1984; and described its concept as “intellectual sexiness.” What is your definition of the Karl Lagerfeld DNA?

PPR: I like that! I would say today in one sentence – be who you want to be. It’s about including everybody and empowering them to express themselves in who they want to be.
 
FN: What is your weekly routine?

PPR: I commute between Munich, Amsterdam and Paris. Every month I travel somewhere, whether Asia or the U.S., where the G-III Apparel Group is based. It has owned the brand for three years. We knew them before as they had 20% of the brand before. Now, they own 100%. We work very well with its CEO Maurice Goldfarb. He is with Warren Buffet the longest standing CEO of a listed company. His father founded the company and it’s listed but it operates with very entrepreneurial values, which resonates with me a lot.
 
FN: What would Karl think of his marque were he alive today?
PPR: His one-time driving principle – embrace the present and invent the future. He would say we are continuing that mantra. What would he feel? He once expressed it when he was alive. He came every year to our year-end Christmas party in Paris – 20 people at first and 600 people in Amsterdam at the end. And I recall him telling me, ‘I always like to come to your parties as I see so many smiling faces and so much positivity.’ And that’s the biggest compliment to me. And he would feel that again today, when, including stores, we are nearly 1,000 people.
 

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