Carolina Cucinelli is a driving force steering her family’s fashion brand into the future, working from an idyllic base in the Umbrian countryside
THE DAY BEFORE WE’VE ARRANGED TO MEET, I cross paths with Carolina Cucinelli in the mediaeval piazza of her home in Solomeo, Umbria. Swallows swoop around the cypress-trees, the sun is low in the sky and the warm breeze is fragrant with jasmine and pine. The co-president and co-creative director of her father’s eponymous clothing brand Brunello Cucinelli is at a table with a group of business associates, who are just leaving – so she waves me over to join her for a drink. Dressed in a white T-shirt, beige cargo trousers, cream Converse trainers and blue-mirrored sunglasses, with her blonde hair tied back and fine gold rings on her manicured fingers, she greets me with a hug.
Solomeo has been her stamping-ground since she was born: Cucinelli grew up here with her elder sister Camilla – they played in this square with the same friends they now see for dinner at weekends – and she is raising her three-year-old son Brando (named after Marlon) in the hamlet. ‘We travel a lot with work, but this is where I come back to,’ she says. ‘This is my place, where my soul lives, and I want my kid to have the same opportunities I had in my childhood.’
Her father founded the label 45 years ago with a series of dyed-cashmere jumpers; shortly after, he moved to Solomeo, his wife Federica’s home town, and restored one of its ruined buildings to house the company headquarters. Since then, the business has become one of the world’s most valuable fashion houses, with more than 100 boutiques around the world. Coveted for its understated approach to luxury, the brand eschews flashy logos in favour of highquality materials and artisanal practices, with 60 per cent of its pieces made by hand, many of which can take up to 20 hours.
Both Cucinelli and her sister now have key roles in the company (Camilla is the co-head of womenswear design), but she says that they were never pressured to follow in their father’s footsteps. ‘I’ve always had a passion for sewing,’ she says. ‘When I was little, I would make dresses for my
Barbie dolls from small pieces of cashmere from the workshop. As a teenager, I changed my mind a lot about what to do for my career. I wanted to be a painter, because I love art, then I thought about becoming a dancer because I took lessons for many years, then I tried photography classes and a tattooing course.’ She clearly has a talent for the latter: on her ankle is a detailed profile of a lion that she drew herself. ‘My father and mother left me to experience things,’ she reflects.
‘I was free to make my choi
