Page 32 of Palazzo
“Ilovethem. They’re exquisite!” She put her arms around his neck and kissed him, while Allegra studied the bags carefully.
“They’re incredibly well made, almost as good as ours, and you did them in a month. Ours take a year to make, and our production is so slow, it drives me crazy.” But the Saverio bags were in great part handmade, and the price reflected that.
Cosima was curious about the price point.
“They won’t be inexpensive,” Olivier said. “These would be the absolute top of our line, for each store’s very special customers. They’re almost double what we’ve charged so far, but the cost of the material will demand it, and I don’t want to go lower. We wouldn’t expect big orders for them, but it gives the store a step up to offer their clients, without charging Hermès or Saverio prices. They’re amiddle ground between what you do and what we do now, without sacrificing quality.” His own design team was thrilled with what they’d been allowed to do for the first time. “We can try it for one season, and just treat it as a special event, and see what happens, or we can add a whole new dimension to our line, for our elite clients.” The bags looked even more expensive than they were, and all three agreed that the subtle changes made them more attractive to a younger customer than Saverio usually appealed to, although young people with the means had taken to Hermès in the past decade. Before that, Saverio bags had been designed for an older customer too.
“I justlovethem,” Cosima said again, and tried each one herself in front of the mirror. They looked stunningly chic, and Allegra held each of them up too. She was crazy about the large red one.
“We can do them in any color you want, of course. We did some research, and we worked in the three colors that are your biggest sellers, and three of ours. I really tried to marry our two brands without upsetting anyone. The interiors aren’t as finely finished as yours, but doing that increases the cost by a lot.” The Saverio bags were as beautiful and finely worked inside as out. The Bayard bags were simpler inside, with fewer pockets, which was more cost-effective.
Olivier turned to Allegra then, and unzipped the second suitcase. “Now for our ‘Allegra’ bags,” he said to her with a big smile, while they waited to see what treasures he would unveil. “We went in a whole different direction on these. Wedidn’twant to shock with the collaboration, on the contrary, we wanted all the changes to be very subtle. With Allegra’s bags, we want to wake people up, shake them up, jump in with both feet.” And it was precisely what they’d done, as he unwrapped each one and set them on the low table in front ofthe couch, where Allegra could examine them closely. “We tried all kinds of materials, and some wild colors. We can do them in any colorway and basic material you want. I was trying to keep the price point down since you’re aiming for a much younger customer, and you don’t want a bag they can wear till they’re ninety. You want them to buy a whole new wardrobe of them next season.” Allegra nodded, he had captured exactly what she had described to him a month earlier.
Within minutes there was a rainbow of colors on the table, jewel tones, plaids, interesting fabrics, heavy wools, velvets, corduroy, leather, some with leather accents, a big bright gold bag that both women were drawn to the minute they saw it. He had produced twelve of her designs. Allegra’s eyes were wide as she saw what he’d done. She’d given him her sketches, which were just rough, and he had transformed them, polished them, and really made them work, in all sizes, shapes, and colors. They were all her designs, but with a kick and a twist. He wasn’t sure how she would react to them, or if his production team had interpreted them right. They had loved working on them, and Allegra looked bowled over. She screamed when he unwrapped the gold bag. She examined each one and sat beaming in her chair. “Oh my God, Ilovethem!”
“So do I,” Cosima agreed. The bags suddenly made her realize that she should have been more open to Allegra’s ideas, but she wasn’t sure how the Saverio customers would react or if they’d approve. But these were for Allegra’s own line, if she decided to go forward with it.
“We kept the price points as low as we could on these without sacrificing quality, but it’s why we went with fabrics in some cases,with leather trim. I think your designs are sensational, Allegra, and the production team says they’re so clear that they’re easy to work with. And none of the designs are tricky.” Allegra had learned everything about construction working for her sister for seven years. With the very set, staid Saverio designs, her job had been tedious, but it had taught her a great deal.
Allegra was ecstatic, and Cosima was thrilled for her, and with their collaboration. They all sat around the low table then, and Olivier and Cosima sat on the couch.
“Are we happy?” he asked them, but he could see that they were. “I could hardly wait to get here today, and I was terrified the airline would lose one of the bags. I didn’t want to disappoint either one of you, and my teams in Paris and at the factory are dying to hear what you think. Remember that these are just prototypes and the workmanship on the final products will be finer. Some of these are still a little rough.”
“I think you’re a genius.” Cosima beamed at him, and she was excited for Allegra too. She was on the phone with Basile at that exact moment, telling him how gorgeous the bags were and how well the designs worked. She couldn’t wait to show them to him that night when he arrived.
“I want to take them home so I can show him,” Allegra said, looking like an excited child.
Olivier turned to Cosima then. “I want you to study them carefully and tell me anything you want to change. I don’t want to screw this up, even if it’s only a one-time thing, if that’s what you decide. I want to get it just right.”
“You already did.” She smiled and leaned over and kissed him. He had opened a whole new horizon to her and she loved it.
“You too, Allegra. We can do anything you want, change anything, size, hardware, color, fabric, leather grain. We’re working for you here. You’re the designer, we’re your production team on this. And I have a proposal I want to make you. I’d like to back you in this venture. You’re a talented young designer, and I think you’re going to have a huge hit with these designs.” He loved encouraging young talent, and hers was enormous. If Cosima let Allegra establish her own bag company, he thought she was going to be a gigantic success in a few years. “I’d like to help you get started. We could produce them at our factories in Santa Croce sull’Arno, which would give you quality control. You can bring the cost way down and position them at a lower price point if you use factories in China, for instance, but you won’t get the same result, and then you’re aiming for a different customer.”
“I want to keep the quality high, like these,” Allegra said, “without making them too expensive for young women like me. I don’t want to buy a bag I’ll be stuck with forever or feel Ihaveto keep because it was so expensive or I can’t afford a new one. I like buying new things,” which was age-appropriate for her. The Saverio customer wanted a bag that was classic and would last a lifetime, that she would still be wearing in forty years. At twenty-nine, Allegra didn’t think that way. And Olivier’s usual customer, for his own line, wanted the Saverio look, but at a more attractive price, and was willing to sacrifice some of the quality, but not the style. He was going to step up in both look and price with his Saverio collaboration, and was excited about it himself. They each knew their customer well, whichwas essential, and what was expected of them. And there was a place in the market for all of their customers.
“Are you serious that you’d back me?” Allegra asked him, breathless with excitement and stunned by the offer.
“I am. And we can handle the wholesale orders for you. But I have another idea, as an experiment. We own several buildings in the Eighth Arrondissement. One of them has a store that’s about to become vacant in January on the rue Francois Premier just off the Avenue Montaigne, across from Dior. I’d like to use it as a concept store for the collaboration for Fashion Week, and we could sell your bags too, in a limited amount, like what we have here. And after that, if the numbers look promising, you could open a store there of your own.” What he was talking about took money, and Allegra was willing to put what she’d made on the house sale into it. “We can talk about it later.” He had another idea too, which he shared with Cosima that night. He didn’t know if she’d be open to it, and it had been counter to their policy until then, he knew.
“I think you should open a store in Paris,” he suggested to her after dinner at one of their favorite restaurants. They’d been talking about the venture he wanted to help Allegra launch. He had already told Cosima what a huge success he thought Allegra was going to be, and now that she’d seen her designs come to life, she agreed. It was a double-edged sword for her, because she didn’t want to lose Allegra from her business. She worked hard, and she was family, which was sacred to Cosima, but she didn’t think she could hold Allegra back for much longer. If she and Basile stayed together, she would want to move to Paris, and had already alluded to it a few times. Cosima could see what was coming and didn’t want to stop her. Allegra wasturning thirty and wanted her own full life, with the man she loved, and to grow as a designer. She was ready. Cosima wasn’t, but she knew she’d have to face it, and it wouldn’t be fair to stop her, or force her to stay in Rome.
“I’m serious,” Olivier said about a Saverio store in Paris. “I know it’s against your policy, but that was in your grandfather’s day. Italy was the hub of his world then. The world is a bigger place now, and Saverio belongs in Paris to give Hermès a run for their money.” He smiled at her. Hermès was their biggest competitor, and the only store like Saverio, on a much larger, worldwide scale. “I’ve had my eye on a store for you on the Faubourg Saint-Honoré. I could negotiate it for you if you let me.”
“I don’t know if I’m ready for that,” she said, taken aback by his suggestion. “Having two stores is already a lot to deal with. Three would keep me running all the time.” It was true, but feasible, and a possibility she hadn’t even considered.
“You’d have to hire good people to run it,” he advanced cautiously then, “and I’d love to have you with me in Paris, at least some of the time.” He was commuting to Rome almost every weekend to see her. She hardly had time to travel, so much rested on her with the stores in Rome and Venice. Adding Paris to them would be huge.
She smiled then. “My grandfather always forbade my father from opening another store. He waited until my grandfather died to move to Rome and launch the store there, and it was much bigger than the original. It was his dream. My grandfather always told him what a mistake it would be, and of course it wasn’t. It grew the business exponentially and made us what we are today.”
“Paris would too, and take you to another level. And I’m not justsaying that so you come to Paris for me. You need to do that for the business. Your brand is too important to confine it to just Italy.” When he said it, she wished that she could ask Gian Battista what he thought. He had rarely made mistakes with his advice to her in business, and Olivier wasn’t entirely objective, since he wanted her with him, and she never based her business decisions on her personal life. She was a smart businesswoman. Commercially, she suspected he was right, but opening a store in Paris would be a huge undertaking, though maybe a wise one in the long run.
“I’ll think about it,” was all she would commit to at the moment, but she was trying to be open to new ideas, like the pop-up stores, and her collaboration with him.
“I’ll show you the store I have in mind on the Faubourg when you come to Paris.” He hoped she could see the merits of it. “It’s not enormous, but I think it’s the right size for you. It’s on two levels. And this isn’t for you right now with your customer, but Allegra should sell online too. That’s a huge market for her, especially at her price point, and the age of her clients. They do everything online.”
With the exciting prototypes he had brought with him, they had a lot to talk about that night, and so did Allegra and Basile.
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