Onward Luxury Group entrusts Fabio Ducci with leadership, refocuses on young talent

By

Dominique Muret

Published
Sep 18, 2019

Big changes are underway at Onward Luxury Group (OLG). The luxury subsidiary of the eponymous Japanese group is reorganizing after the departure of its former CEO Franco Penè. Since appointing Takehiro Shiraishi as head of Onward Italy, the group's European holding company, last year, the company has overhauled the management of its two divisions: Jil Sander and Onward Luxury Group, with the former gaining a new head in the form of Fabio Ducci. 

 
Ducci has been serving as CEO at OLG, which owns Moreau and Charlotte Olympia, and also manufactures and distributes the apparel and footwear ranges of a number of other brands, since January. The Italian executive has led OLG's footwear division since 2015 but now also oversees its ready-to-wear division. 

"To start with, I'm hoping to reconnect with the progress made by Frano Penè, making the group a real talent incubator again and enriching our portfolio of private labels. For this reason, we've just launched two shoe brands, Carlotha Ray and F_WD, and also have a number or other projects in development. In particular, an important new footwear brand," explained Ducci to FashionNetwork.com during the launch of F_WS in Milan, where a pop-up store has been set up for the brand on the chic Via Sant'Andrea. The new label is also available in Paris, at a pop-up in Bon Marché, until October 15. 

In October 2018, Axel Keller was promoted to the head of Jil Sander, a role in which he succeeded Alessandra Bettari, who became vice president of Onward Luxury Group (OLG). At the same time, manufacturing for Onward's German label was separated from that of the group's other licensees. The brand now has its own dedicated production site in the Florentine installations of the company, formerly known as Gibo, while the collections of the group's other labels are managed by a facility in Bergamo.