All together now

Daniel Lalonde’s CV makes for impressive reading. After starting his career as a management consultant in Paris, the Canadian-born businessman worked at Nespresso before spending more than 10 years in executive positions at lvmh, building brands such as Tag Heuer, Louis Vuitton, Moët & Chandon and Dom Perignon, followed by a stint at Ralph Lauren. In 2014 he became the ceo of smcp and under his leadership the French multibrand group flourished, achieving €1bn in revenues and a successful Euronext Paris listing. In 2021 he channelled this experience in the luxury-fashion sector into high-end design, taking the reins at Design Holding, a group that was founded in 2018 and whose portfolio of brands includes Flos, b&b Italia, Louis Poulsen, Maxalto, Azucena, Arclinea, Fendi Casa, Audo and Lumens. In the past year, the nine brands generated €898.6m in gmv revenues and the company changed its name to Flos b&b Italia Group. Lalonde tells us about the significance of the rebrand and the parallels between fashion and furniture. — L

Why are groups such as Flos B&B Italia Group emerging in the design sector?
If you look at the fashion and luxury space, it’s a world that has been consolidating into groups for quite some time, with the likes of lvmh and Kering evolving over the past 30 years. It has become a very concentrated sector that is doing very well. That hasn’t happened in high-end design – and that’s why we’re doing it. We are the first to consolidate these types of world-class design brands and provide them all with a platform for international growth. We’re only at the beginning of developing this design space but it is closely linked to luxury and fashion. These sectors have a lot of things in common. The first and probably most important commonality is that we share a customer: they’re someone with a Birkin bag, a Cartier watch and a pair of Louboutins, plus a sofa by b&b Italia and an Arco lamp from Flos.

Why is this shift only starting to happen now?
Design has been a very fragmented industry, built by family-owned companies that are successful in their home markets. Because they are usually small, they found it difficult to expand globally. But that is changing and the sector will grow with the formation of groups. And it’s a good thing because it creates interest in everyone that’s doing work in the high-end design space. It helps the industry to become more democratic too, which benefits consumers. Our job at Flos b&b Italia Group is to be better than our competition – to have superior designs, focus on sustainability and tell the story about our heritage and our icons, which are important.

Explain to us the significance of your rebrand as Flos B&B Italia Group.
The decision to rename the holding company Flos b&b Italia Group was driven by a desire to reference the sectors in which our brands operate and excel in more clearly and directly. We wanted to anchor the corporate name to the founding and most globally renowned brands in our portfolio. We also wanted to highlight the fact that we are a group by including the word in our name, reaffirming our solid, unified and complementary dimension. We are an ecosystem of iconic brands that share a common ethos, focused on beauty, craftsmanship, quality and sustainability, but each of them is fiercely independent, with its own strong brand identity and design dna.

1874
The Louis Poulsen brand is launched as a wine-importing business in Copenhagen.

1925
Kitchen specialist Arclinea is founded in Caldogno, Italy.

1947
Azucena is established in Italy.

1962
Dino Gavina and Cesare Cassina found Flos in Merano, Italy.

1966
Piero Ambrogio Busnelli and Cesare Cassina start furniture firm b&b Italia (formerly c&b) in Novedrate, Italy.

1975
Maxalto is established in Misinto, with furniture designers Afra and Tobia Scarpa as collaborators.

1978
Furniture and homewares brand Menu, now known as Audo, is launched in Copenhagen.

1988
Luxury fashion brand Fendi starts its first homeware collection as Fendi Casa in Rome.

2001
Lighting specialist Lumens is founded in San Francisco.

2018
Flos, Louis Poulsen and b&b Italia Group come together to form Design Holding.

2021
Fendi Casa and Lumens enter Design Holding.

2022
Design Holding acquires Audo.

2024
After a rebrand, Flos b&b Italia Group is born.