Celebrating Italian Craftsmanship & Elegance

NEW YORK — Brioni may not be as big as some of its luxury Italian competitors such as Zegna or Brunello Cucinelli, but the company has a rich history nonetheless. And it’s that history that Federico Arrigoni is leaning into with the Grand Tour.

The chief executive officer of the menswear brand, who took the reins of the Kering-owned company in May of 2025, was in New York to host two customer-facing events as part of a global journey designed to further highlight Brioni’s craftmanship and expertise.

“The Grand Tour dates back to the 1950s,” he said. “Brioni was the first brand to start a real fashion show for men. It was in Florence at the Palazzo Pitti in 1952. That was the beginning of the Pitti fair. Then a couple of years later, the two founders thought it was a good idea to export that form, which was quite successful. The fashion show drew buyers from all over the world, but in particular from the U.S., who has been always quite supportive of Brioni. So, seeing the success they had in Florence, they thought, OK, maybe we can replicate the fashion show in a smaller format. And that’s how the Grand Tour started. They did the first fashion show in New York in 1954, and in 1955 they did the Grand Tour.”

But the brand didn’t abandon the runway. In fact, between 1952 and 1957, Brioni held nearly 300 shows in more than 40 countries on five continents.

The initial Grand Tour was more like a trunk show, Arrigoni said, and it traveled to Chicago and Los Angeles in addition to New York. “The trunks were filled with fabric, models and patterns and they had real fashion shows in department stores and hotels,” he said. “They were doing something that was completely new at the time.”

Because Brioni didn’t have its own stores at the time, it was seen as a way to “raise awareness and to excite buyers,” he said. “When I came on board last year, I realized there was this big opportunity.” So he spearheaded the Grand Tour’s return. The tour kicked off in Hong Kong at the end of May and then moved to Tokyo in September. New York is the final stop.

The tour allows Brioni to highlight some special products made from superluxurious materials such as vicuna or alligator, he said. It also serves to introduce its chief master tailor, Angelo Petrucci, to customers. Petrucci enrolled in Brioni’s tailoring school in Penne when he was a teenager and has been with the company ever since. He’s now the go-to tailor for celebrities, royalties and heads of state. “He is extraordinary and so is his presence,” Arrigoni said.

The Grand Tour allows customers to book appointments with Petrucci or other tailors over the course of three to five days. It also serves to showcase the company’s personalization programs, or what it calls “Maestria,” a made-to-order and made-to-measure service that spans all categories.

“This is part of our essence,” he said. “This is something where we are not only making a difference with respect to our competitors, but it’s something that is really in our DNA. So I thought it was important to restart that — not to boast, but to give the project a real commercial opportunity.”

Although the company still hosts traditional trunk shows, the Grand Tour is the “enhanced version,” Arrigoni said. It offers entertainment for top clients who are invited to exclusive dinners, cocktails, live music and panel discussions. “Good food, good company, beautiful products and excellence in partnership,” he said.

But it’s not just the old run-of-the-mill event, he said. In Hong Kong, for example, rather than just booking a Michelin-starred restaurant, Brioni took over a villa in the middle of the island that had been closed to the public for 20 years. “We try to provide our clients with a real experience, not something that they’ve already tried. The advantage is that we’re small, so we don’t have to manage 2,000 clients, we can manage 30 to 50.”

In New York, Brioni hosted a dinner at Fasano’s Baretto with actors Ebon Moss-Bachrach and William Abadie that celebrated Italian heritage. It was followed by an in-store cocktail reception to present the new collection and a panel discussion on Italian elegance with Arrigoni, Moss-Bachrach and Michael Sebastian, editor in chief of Esquire. There will also be an exhibition of 10 historical pieces Brioni has created over the years such as the James Bond jacket and another created in gold.

But for Arrigoni, the most useful part of the Grand Tour is the opportunity to get some facetime with Brioni’s customers.

“For me, the most important part is to listen to the clients,” he said. “Sometimes, the clients are even more passionate than my team and they can’t wait to give feedback. We have a small number of clients compared to other luxury brands, but a few contribute a huge portion to our turnover and I want to meet with them because they have very specific opinions about our product.”

Arrigoni said the plan is to continue the Grand Tour next year with stops in different cities. Although no locations have been finalized, London, Paris, Dubai and Shanghai are on the top of his list.

He said that for this year’s edition, Brioni specifically made New York the last stop because it wanted to get all the kinks out before arriving in the States. The U.S. is the brand’s largest market and the level of awareness of the Brioni name here is the highest. The company operates stores in key cities such as New York and Beverly Hills and the brand is carried at Bergdorf Goodman, Nordstrom, Bloomingdale’s, Mitchells Stores and others.

“I would say desirability is very clear, and business-wise, we have both retail and wholesale, and the two are trending very positively. So yes, there is clearly opportunity,” he said. He added that recently, the brand has begun attracting a younger generation, or men below 50, who are buying its deconstructed jackets and other items, “which is good for our future. And because we’re not losing the older generation, it’s accretive.”

That’s one reason Arrigoni is so happy to have joined Brioni. He’s been at Kering since 2006, at Gucci followed by Saint Laurent. Before that he was with Dolce & Gabbana.

“I love it,” he said of his role and the brand. “When Francesca Bellettini [deputy CEO of Kering] offered me the job, I didn’t hesitate for a second because I felt like I am the Brioni man so I can understand what a client might see when they look at Brioni. I love the products, and when I entered the company, I was surprised that from the inside, it’s even better than from the outside. But I felt there was a huge opportunity to complete the mission of letting the client discover how deep and wide we can go in terms of offer.”