“In 2008 I left Benetton with 155 million euros of assets and I'm returning with 81 million liabilities in 2016. For me it is an intolerable pain. So I'm back on the pitch as I was then, with my sister Giuliana who started making sweaters again at the age of 80. And with Oliviero Toscani” to color the world. It is a furious Luciano Benetton who today, in a long interview with Repubblica, announced his return to the field. To save and relaunch Benetton, the company once the leader of colored Made in Italy sweaters.
“We defeated ourselves. Our shops, which were wells of light, have become dark and sad” , but the gravest sin was “having stopped making sweaters: it's as if they had cut off the water from an aqueduct”. Luciano Benetton's analysis, which he has for family members and managers, is merciless. The generational change didn't work but neither did the choice of managers who were called to manage Benetton's clothing: "I left first to my son Alessandro, the second son, who soon - explains Luciano - took two steps back . And the company was entrusted to managers: we sent someone away and someone else understood and left. Others will understand."
In Benetton, "intelligible mistakes have been made over the years, but - adds Luciano - I don't feel the guilt, I feel the anger". How to restart? Returning to his job of producing and enhancing beautiful color sweaters with the help of the creative imagination of Olivero Toscani.
But sacrifices will be inevitable. “We have to lighten the company and management errors weigh more than the cost of personnel”. On the other hand, "we are preparing a new product, we redo the shops, we study the colors and we reorganize ourselves". Good luck, Benetton.
