Pietro Beccari to replace Sidney Toledano as Christian Dior CEO

Ending his 20 year long journey heading LVMH’s coveted fashion house Christian Dior, Sidney Toledano moving into a new role within LVMH, confirms Bloomberg sighting sources familiar with the development. The report added that Pietro Beccari, currently CEO of Fendi, will step into Toledano’s role as CEO of Christian Dior Couture. The development yet to be made public by the LVMH Group, will see Toledano taking up a supervisory role as chief of the LVMH Fashion Group, overseeing Kenzo and Celine, reports WWD.

WWD added quoting the company statement that Toledano will replace Pierre-Yves Roussel, who so far was the chairman and CEO of LVMH Fashion Group and Roussel will continue to be the special advisor to LVMH Chairman and CEO Bernard Arnault. Meanwhile, the respective heads of Céline, Givenchy, Kenzo, Loewe, Marc Jacobs, Pucci, Rossi Moda and Nicholas Kirkwood will start reporting into Toledano and Roussel, who has been with the LVMH executive committee for last 14 years will shoulder the new operational responsibilities.

Beginning of a new era at Christian Dior as Beccari named new CEO

The current reshuffle at LVMH signals at a transformation fashion industry in witnessing with young executives stepping in to drive faster growth in the Internet era. Beccari’s appointment as the new CEO of Christian Dior is seen as the part of this momentum.

Bloomberg states that 50 year-old Beccari successfully brought about a transformation to Fendi from a fur specialist to a brand with an over 1 billion euros in sales. He did everything to drive the label’s growth from store renovations to discontinuing logo-printed handbags in favour of luxury models like the 3,200 dollars Peekaboo and 5,550 Baguette dollars.

LVMH acquired Christian Dior Couture for 6.5 billion euros (7.5 billion dollars), bringing the brand’s fashion and accessories business under the same umbrella as the company-owned perfume business for the first time since the 1960s, the report adds. Bllomberg said quoting Exane BNP Paribas analyst Luca Solca that the Dior merger created a mega-brand with combined of sales of more than 5 billion euros a year, and the project is known internally as “One Dior.”

LVMH recently announced several executive changes to make way for Toledano’s succession, which included Nicola Brandolese, who most recently served as president of retail at Italian eyewear retailer Luxottica Group SpA, joining the company and Dom Perignon Champagne was roped in for an unspecified role on June 1.

Toledano joined Dior in 1994 and became CEO in 1998. In 2011, Bloomberg said, he fired the label’s head designer Galliano after he was filmed uttering anti-Semitic comments in a Paris cafe. Despite the successive departures of Slimane and Galliano followed by Raf Simons, the Belgian designer who left in 2015 after three and a half years, Tolendano managed to keep the label’s growth momentum.

Photo: Anne-Christine Poujoulat, Alberto Pizzoli / AFP