The newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore reports that the Swiss holding Richemont will concentrate most of the industrial development and production of bags, wallets, belts and luggage of its fashion brands in Florence, betting on Made in Italy as the French giants Kering and LVMH already do. The brands involved in the project are Cartier, Dunhill, Serapian, Purdey and Alaïa, Chloé as well as Montblanc. The “good practices acquired at the Montblanc plant (also a brand of the Swiss holding company) in Scandicci, which was opened in 2007, and the high quality of the products, would have been decisive in the development of the new strategy. The Scandicci plant has already changed its name from Pelletteria Montblanc to Pelletteria Richemont.
It is expected an increase of about 100 employees and a total investment of between 15 and 25 million euros depending on the industrial solution that will be chosen.
In 2017, exports from the Florentine luxury leather goods district rose by 15% to 2.5 billion Euros. Among the top of the range brands that in recent years have invested in Tuscan leather goods are Céline (with the manufacture of Radda in Chianti), Prada (with a factory in Scandicci and the new factory-garden of Valvigna), Fendi (which bought an ex furnace in Bagno a Ripoli to create a factory of bags) and LVMH (with a center for the development of samples in Reggello). In addition, of course, to Gucci, which in Scandicci brought together the creation of shoes and leather goods in the ArtLab, and Burberry which, also in Scandicci, has recently acquired its own supplier with the intention of settling directly in the Florentine district.