Italy’s Ermenegildo Zegna posted a 19.3 percent increase in full-year organic revenue on Friday and proposed a 20 percent hike in its annual dividend, helped by robust demand for its luxury products.

The family-owned fashion group, which controls menswear brand Zegna, as well as the US labels Thom Browne and Tom Ford Fashion, saw a 24 percent increase in Greater China revenue during the period.

“We are on track with the integration of the Tom Ford Fashion business, which is enriching our unique proposition in luxury glamour” Chairman and CEO Ermenegildo Zegna said.

The company’s full-year revenue reached 1.9 billion euros ($2.06 billion) in 2023 and it has proposed a dividend of 0.12 euros ($0.1300) per share.

Zegna, which debuted on Wall Street in late 2021, said its EBIT reached 220 million euros in 2023, compared to 157.7 million euros in the prior year.

By Gursimran Kaur; Editing by Ravi Prakash Kumar

Learn more:

Ermenegildo Zegna Sidesteps Luxury’s US Slowdown

Sales in America were boosted by the company’s acquisition of the Tom Ford fashion business, as well as double digit growth at Zegna and Thom Browne.

An Italian court on Friday placed under judicial administration a company owned by Italian fashion group Armani, accused of indirectly subcontracting its production to Chinese companies that exploited workers.

The court in Milan ordered a one-year receivership for Giorgio Armani Operations, described as an industrial company of the Armani Group, according to the ruling seen by Reuters.

It said Giorgio Armani Operations had entrusted the production of its bags to two firms that subcontracted the work to four Chinese companies which paid their workers €2 to €3 ($3.25) per hour.

Armani Group said in a statement it had “always had control and prevention measures in place to minimise abuses in the supply chain,” adding it would work with the authorities to clarify its position.

The Milan public prosecutors’ office has for years been investigating the outsourcing of production by large groups in the fashion and other industries to subcontractors who allegedly exploit workers.

The fashion company Alviero Martini, which had its bags produced by external Chinese workshops, was recently placed under judicial supervision.

With its tradition of sophisticated craftsmanship, Italy is home to thousands of small manufacturers that cover 50-55 percent of the global production of luxury clothing and leather goods, consultancy Bain calculates, against 20-25 percent for the rest of Europe.

Learn more:

Luxury Brands Lag on Efforts to Reduce Forced Labour

Despite strides made to eliminate the use of forced labour in fashion’s supply chain, companies’ lack of transparency is causing them to fall behind, according to a new industry report.

Tom Ford has appointed Dexter King as senior vice president, global general manager, promoting him from his previous global marketing and strategy position. King has been with the business for nine years, and will continue to report to Guillaume Jesel, the brand’s chief executive and president.

In his new role, King will be tasked with driving the brand’s luxury positioning and expanding geographic growth. Tom Ford Beauty is of great importance to its parent, the Estée Lauder Companies – in 2022, it splurged $2.8 billion to acquire the entirety of the brand so it wouldn’t lose the rights to its lucrative beauty line.

Sales of its premium products have contributed to pockets of net sales growth for ELC against its difficult post-pandemic recovery; hero products like the Black Orchid and Lost Cherry perfumes and Shade and Illuminate contour palette are enduringly popular, while new launches like the Ultra-Shine Lip Color also generate buzz.

“Dexter’s appointment recognizes his tenured success on Tom Ford Beauty and I look forward to working with him on the future of luxury beauty,” said Jesel.

Learn more:

Estée Lauder Reveals Its Recovery Playbook

The beauty giant announced layoffs and plans to regain profitability, measures to restore faith in investors and customers alike.

It begins around the start of April each year: a tsunami of promotions for “sustainable” brands and products keen to leverage the marketing potential of Earth Day.

The April 22 event was conceived some 50 years ago as a way to draw attention to climate issues and galvanise environmental action, but these days it’s often treated more like a shopping holiday that lasts the whole month.

Except this year, something is different. Earth Day pitches are down year-on-year, based on an informal analysis of the volume of emails arriving in the inboxes of BoF’s editorial team. No doubt, April is still young, but the tone of the messaging has shifted as well. Fewer comms teams are circulating shopping recommendations — or at the very least, they’ve clocked not to bother sending them to us.

Instead of pushing upcycled, regeneratively farmed or other buzzword-enhanced capsule collections, companies are hosting educational talks, promoting takeback programmes and offering insights into their broader sustainability strategies.

Lululemon even managed to drop its first product made using a new polyester recycling technology earlier this week without referencing Earth Day at all.

So what’s changed?

Regulation, for one. Over the last two years there’s been a seismic shift in what advertising watchdogs in major markets like Europe and the UK will tolerate when it comes to sustainability marketing.

Labels once commonly used to market Earth Day collections, like “green,” “eco” and “responsible,” are now risky, if not verboten. British brands got a timely reminder of this last week, when Boohoo and Asos reached an agreement with the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority to change the way they market the environmental credentials of their clothes so that any potential benefits are more accurate and clear.

“The industry as a whole is so much more educated and people are also a little bit afraid of making a mistake and getting called out for stuff,” said Carrie Ellen Philips, co-founding partner at consulting and communications firm BPCM. “What we’re seeing here is that companies are realising that sustainability doesn’t equal one better product, it equals doing better all year.”

The strategic calculus for brands has shifted, too. Launching an upcycled capsule or organic line now ranks as an also-ran in an increasingly saturated market, rather than a distinguishing promotional moment. And for companies really working to improve their environmental footprint, any communication around Earth Day risks getting drowned out or associated with less meaningful actions.

“This is the Hallmark card holiday of sustainability,” said Erin Allweiss, co-founder of communications firm No.29, which represents brands whose businesses are impact-focused. “It’s gotten so loud around Earth Month that we recommend not doing things because it detracts from work going on year round and it gets lost.”

It’s hard to make a credible case to consumers that companies are operating more responsibly while using an event designed to raise awareness about the climate crisis as an excuse to shill more clothes, a key contributor to the problem.

“In this over-consuming, over-production era, if you meet Earth Day with just another product, you’re not getting the memo,” said Emma Beckett, managing director at Emma Beckett PR.

Increasingly, it seems brands have clocked this cognitive dissonance. And that opens up the opportunity to explore new ways to engage with Earth Day by trying to promote education and action, rather than products.

Welcome back to Haul of Fame, the weekly beauty roundup of new products, new ideas and one more excuse to listen to “Glee.” (Really!)

Included in today’s issue: Biossance, Bobbi Brown, Dr. Jart+, E.l.f., Diptyque, Elizabeth Arden, Face Gym, Fenty, Guerlain, Herbivore Botanicals, Huda Beauty, Irene Forte Beauty, Jackie Aina, Lanolips, Loewe, Mac Cosmetics, MCM, Nars, Neova, One/Size, Patrick Starr, Pat McGrath Labs, Rosen, Seen, Trudon, This Works and overexposed witches.

But first…

Dr. Lara Devgan wants to “find her people.”

The New York-based plastic surgeon and aesthetician doesn’t mean friends, romantic partners or especially clients — in fact, her Manhattan office is always booked, and her Instagram boasts an audience of nearly 1 million followers. She’s married with many friends, too, and a very gorgeous cat.

Instead, Devgan means the people who should know about her skincare line, but don’t yet. “It’s a crowded field, obviously,” Devgan said. “But you don’t just want awareness. You want connection, and a match between what people are searching for, and what you can actually give them.”

Enter Casa Cipriani, the hotel and members club whose chosen clique pays a reported $4,000 per year to hang with rumoured members like Leonardo DiCaprio, John Legend and Drew Barrymore. Taylor Swift was a patron, too, before she bounced to Zero Bond after a Cipriani paparazzi leak last summer.

Devgan’s latest product, Casa Cipriani Firming Serum, is designed for the club, and will be available on her website, in the hotel’s minibars and at the spa, where it will also be used in an exclusive treatment. A topical formula with Vitamin E, Vitamin C, omegas and a retinol, it promises to “tone and tighten” fight lines and dullness, and costs $200. The partnership officially starts on Apr. 9, and will also include on-location discussions with Dr. Devgan and select boldface names about the future of beauty.

The doctor hopes using the exclusive hub as a launch pad will get her brand into her customers’ headspace, and eventually their living spaces, too. “I’m trying to reach people where they relax, where they eat, where they sleep and where they exercise,” she said, noting that true luxury is “when people are being met where they are.”

In that way, this partnership isn’t so different from The Wing’s bathrooms packed with Glossier and Chanel samples in 2016, or The Colony’s current Palm Beach spa with Naturopathica. (Soho House’s Cowshed and Soho Skin ranges belong here, too.) The thinking goes, if you make a product an in-the–know exclusive — and place it in a locale where the clientele have already been vetted for cultural and actual capital — the work of capturing an influential buying class has already been done. It’s essentially the in-flight-magazine school of marketing: Potential shoppers are already strapped into your whole vibe with little distraction, and they’re looking to make their lives easier.

“People don’t want more and more stuff clogging up their medicine cabinets,” said Devgan. “They want help with curation and genuine expertise to find fewer better things,” like an expertly-formulated serum that brightens, tones and smooths all at once.

But you’ve got to be in the right place at the right time — and often with a member’s card — to find these opportunities, and today, many consumers claim they value inclusion over access.

Let’s see if that holds true here.

Skincare

It drives me nuts when brands drop new products on Apr. 1, because what if it’s a joke? (So many of them are. None are funny.) But Elizabeth Arden really did introduce its Eight Hour HydraPlay daily moisturiser on the first! It’s real! So did Irene Forte with its Pistachio face oil and This Works with its new Perfect Body Vitamin C Glow and Perfect Body Smoothing Wash.

On Apr. 2, Biossance introduced a new sheer mineral sunscreen. It’s an SPF 30 and like many new sunscreen launches this year, it also primes makeup.

On the breakout beat, Mar. 28 brought us Seen’s new Unseen pimple patches, which are meant for zits hiding under the surface. I tried one on a particularly angry red spot last night. It helped!

Neova’s new 5-Second Daily Peel pads hit shelves on Apr. 2. Single-use packaging makes me crazy, but if you’re a frequent traveller and your skin gets super oily or congested, I can see why you’d adore them. If you prefer travelling with full products, Dr. Jart+ debuted its Brightamin range — an ampoule serum and an under eye serum stick — on Mar. 26 that pack up nicely.

Did you think we’d make it through one Haul of Fame without a pond scum ingredient? Of course not. This time, it’s FaceGym’s new Active Collagen Wonder serum, with Phyto-Retinol “derived from sustainably grown Mediterranean microalgae.”

Finally, this month brings us our very first Sofia Richie beauty campaign sighting — in a Sol de Janeiro campaign. She’s promoting the brand’s Rio Radiance SPF 50 spray.

Cosmetics

Good news: One/Size has teamed with “Wicked” for an Apr. 2 launch. Patrick Starrr’s line includes a Wicked Unlimited Face & Eye palette, Spotlight Highlight, Popular Glitter setting spray and Off The Handle brush. Mac Cosmetics created the original looks for the Broadway musical, so it’s somewhat surprising this indie brand is getting some Elphaba merch magic. If you still want to be green with OG envy, Mac’s Chromacake pigment in Landscape Green is the actual stage shade.

Is spring always this heavy on blush launches? On Mar. 28, Nars debuted a new version of their Powder blush, a 16-hour formula with 20 new shades … four named some version of “orgasm.” (The more things change…?) On Apr. 1, Laura Geller introduced its Serum Cheek tint, which says it “dabs on smoothly without messing up makeup underneath.” Even Pat McGrath’s new Skin Fetish under-eye powder comes in a super-sweet baby pink.

Also on Mar. 28, Fenty Beauty dropped its Demi’Glow Light-Diffusing highlighter. But if you’d like a more Y2K approach to your subtly gleaming cheekbones, Guerlain’s Météorites powder pearls had a relaunch on Apr. 1. Fenty’s is $40; Guerlain’s is $72.

E.l.f. has a new Power Grip Dewy setting spray, which you could get on Mar. 31 if you hit TikTok Shop. Babe Original’s Intensifying Lash primer also debuted via TikTok Shop on Apr. 2.

Bobbi Brown introduced its Long-Wear Cream Liner sticks on Apr. 1, including shades that smudge easily, but set very firmly after about 20 seconds. If you rely on an easy smokey eye when you’re running late for a party, this is a very solid bet., even at $34 each. (This is a high price point for one eye pencil!)

And in “everything is a gloss now” news, Gisou premiered its Honey Infused lip oils on Mar. 28 and Herbivore Botanicals introduced its Dream Jelly strawberry lip balm on Mar. 29. Both are super-shiny, which of course I love.

If you have some smoothing to do before you get glossy, Lanolips new Coconutter scrub is made with “real, finely ground coconut shell pieces to smooth away dry, flaky skin.” This feels either extreme or amazing. Will test and get back to you.

Fragrance

I really like MCM’s new Crush eau de parfum, which dropped Mar. 28, because its packaging looks like a tiny little logo backpack. I wish it was actually a tiny little logo backpack, because honestly, how fun. (Also more sustainable, and easier to sell separately. Just a thought.)

On Apr. 1, Trudon introduced its Versailles Collection, which boasts “an atmosphere as refined as it is whimsical: a garden created from scratch to entertain and enchant a king, his court and his friends.” I guess we’re gonna leave the whole beheading thing out of the mood boards.

Casual French luxury is also on the menu at Diptyque, with its Parisian Café quartet including coffee, whipped cream, cookie and fruit confit scents. The bundle is a partnership with Paris hotspot Café Verlet, which has the kind of espresso that resets your entire list of life goals.

Cartier debuted two unscented perfume bases — Crème Pure (a cream) and L’Huile Pure (an oil) — on Apr. 1. They’re meant to make your fragrances last longer and have easier layering potential. It reminds me a bit of Future Society’s Optimal Habit “fragrance primer,” which launched in February, except Cartier’s comes in a ‘70s-vibing gold case.

Huda Beauty has turned the fragrance of its Easy Bake powder into an actual fragrance. It launched Apr. 1. Also in sweet smells, the “AI-driven fragrance house” Noteworthy debuted N.768 Golden Reign on Apr. 2. It smells like honey, and the name is because “it takes 768 bees to make 1 lb of honey.” Unless they’re Canadian bees, and then it’s 556.

Loewe’s best-selling scent family has a new little sister. Her name is Ivy and she comes in a solid soap, liquid soap and a body lotion. The brand calls it an “olfactory plant portrait” so … uh … it smells like really lovely leaves and flowers. Enjoy.

Jackie Aina rolled out four new fragrances on Apr. 2, but my favourite is NDA, with rum, tobacco, vanilla and the knowledge that we’ve all signed away a regrettable secret or two in the name of being pretty. Oops.