In this the first article in the Emporean ICONS series, we take a look at Remo Ruffini, the CEO of Moncler.

I try to have what we call in Italian una cultura di buona vita. My life is concentrated not only on work but on my family, how I spend my free time. I think that to be lucid it is important not to overwork” – Remo Ruffini

“Chi più alto sale, più lontano vede; chi più lontano vede, più a lungo sogna” roughly translates in English to “the higher he climbs, the further he sees; he who sees further, dreams longer”. Remo Ruffini, the Italian entrepreneur and CEO-owner of Moncler, must have had the words of legendary Italian alpinist Walter Bonatti, a fellow Lombardian, ringing in his ears as a child. From his childhood home in Lake Como he could see the nearby snowy, inviting peaks of Lanzo d’Intelvi and Piani di Bobbio and the Dolomites beyond. So began his fascination with mountains and skiing, and with Moncler. At the time the nascent Franco-Italian brand, founded in 1952 by René Ramillon and named after the French town of Monestier-de-Clermont, was only just beginning to get a name for itself. Moncler outfitted the Italian mountaineering team that first successfully conquered K2 in 1954 – which included Walter Bonatti - and later the 1968 French ski team for the Grenoble Winter Olympics. Even then it was an iconic brand that Ruffini knew and greatly admired from these early pioneering days. So it was only natural that when presented with the opportunity to work with and later acquire the brand, he grasped it. It represented a return to the mountains and a convergence of his passions, his lifestyle with his job. 

Ruffini’s rise in the fashion world though was not inevitable. He was born into a family where both his grandfather and father worked in fashion, the former in textiles, the latter as a designer with a series of labels including his eponymous Gianfranco Ruffini brand. He is perhaps best remembered for Nik Nik, a shirt brand that was the epitome of disco cool in the 1970s with their wide collars, tight fits, silk fabrics, geometric shapes and loud (gaudy) colours, all the rage on dancefloors both sides of the Atlantic. Nik Nik was founded after Remo’s father met some American businessmen while holidaying in Capri in 1969. They agreed to go into business and in1970 they launched in New York. By 1975 Nik Nik were stocked in ~2500 stores and was turning over US$22M, real money in those days, but fortunes changed as quickly as tastes, and they ceased operations just 2 years later in 1977. So Nik Nik wasn’t exactly Gucci, and Ruffini the younger would certainly have taken note of the power of design and the fickleness of trends and fortunes. Remo had to forge his own way, to climb his own mountain and make his dreams come true. 

That journey began after a short stint in the US working for his father, when he returned to Como with the idea of starting his own label. It was 1984 and his label “New England” was an Italian designer’s take on US preppy design, capitalising on the popularity of brands such as Ralph Lauren and Lacoste which had moved Ivy and Preppy styles into the mainstream. It helped that he’d studied briefly at Boston University while in the US, the spiritual home of prep, allowing him to absorb the lifestyles it aspired to capture. Ruffini combined preppy sensitivities with Italian flair, the combination was irresistible. It foreshadowed both his approach to cultural mashups and business genius, and by 2000 he’d grown and sold the business to Italian house Stefenal the predecessor of OVS. He was now wealthy and restless. The chance to join the then struggling Moncler presented itself.

Ruffini initially joined as consultant and creative director, but by 2003 had parlayed his position into ownership, taking over a company that was close to bankruptcy. He set about turning Moncler around. "This was a time when Moncler was stocked in sportswear stores as a historical asset. I began to focus on corporate structure, quality, and branding to push the brand away from that world.” He initiated a series of Moncler collaborations, co-opting some of the finest designers starting with Junya Watanabe and Nicolas Ghesquière in 2005 and more recently the likes of Alicia Keys, Palm Angels, Hiroshi Fujiwara, Craig Green and Jay-Z.  He launched haute couture collections helmed by Alessandra Facchinetti (ex Gucci), Giambattista Valli and Thom Browne. He made the iconic Maya down jacket ubiquitous, an item that could be worn in the board room, on the street or on ski slopes. His remarkable eye for talent was almost prophetic and he showed he could spot trends and talent others couldn’t see, first collaborating with Pharell Williams in 2008, and Virgil Abloh in 2015 – artists that only much later were feted by Louis Vuitton. Whereas Ruffini identified and nurtured talent, Bernard Arnault and Louis Vuitton exploited them once they were established. Ruffini’s ambition was audacious, and the market loved it. Moncler grew rapidly and by 2013 had listed on the Italian stock exchange in Milan, its share price rising more than 40% on debut. Ruffini was now a billionaire and owner of one of the largest independent luxury fashion brands in the world.

That rapid growth has only continued and Ruffini recently placed what is perhaps his biggest bet with the acquisition of the Italian brand, but hip-hop favourite, Stone Island, for a cool ~1.2B Euro in 2020. A brand made famous by celebrity collaborations with Supreme and sported by artists such as Drake and Travis Scott, Stone Island is at its core another mini-moncler in the making: a brand with real technical fundamentals, admired for its fabric and manufacturing innovation, lauded for its construction and design. The brand has a following among fashionistas and “the patch” (as the Stone Island logo is affectionately known) is sought after by subcultures from American hip hop to Milan’s Paninaro (yes, the look that in the 1980’s inspired the Pet Shop Boys song of the same name). The acquisition was first suggested by the older of the sons, Pietro. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

Ruffini is a family man and a private individual, or as private as a celebrity CEO of one of the hottest global luxury fashion brands can be. He was until recently married for 30 years to Francesca Stoppani Ruffini, a stylist and herself a native of Como. They lived together in Como in their magnificent lake front Villa Palatina together with their 2 children, Romeo and Pietro. The thing about rich Italians is they know how to spend their money and the Ruffini's divided their time between their Como pad, a Milano pied-a-terre and their brutalist masterpiece chalet in St Moritz, amongst other places. Rubbing shoulders with celebrities, Ruffini’s milieu is the global cultural worlds of fashion, cinema and music. Among his closest friends are entrepreneur and F1 mogul Flavio Briatore (perhaps better known for his romantic life including dating Naomi Campbell and fathering children with both Naomi Klum and Wonderbra model Elisabetta Gregoraci), and Renzo Rosso, owner of OTB group including Maison Margiela, Marni, Jill Sander and Viktor and Rolf.

It may also explain why so little is written, at least published, in the mainstream press about his two children Romeo and Pietro. Normally stories on the scions of rich fashion dynasties attract media attention like moths to a flame – see for instance the amount of ink spilt on LVMH progeny, but you would be lucky to find a few mentions of Ruffini’s children. They occasionally are mentioned in the local Milanese financial press and the only things we really know for certain is that unlike Arnault, Ruffini had initially discouraged his children from immediately taking jobs in the family business and had instead urged them to get some real world experience elsewhere, Romeo starting in strategy consulting, while Pietro in private equity. More recently, the younger Romeo has taken charge of the group’s acquisition of Stone Island, while the older Pietro has taken over the family PE-like investment company, Archive which he also co-founded. Their personal lives have largely been off-limits with the older, of the children linked to actress Matilde Pezzotta (best known for bit parts in horror movies), while the younger, Romeo has been in a long time relationship with Milanese local, Allegra Benini, formerly of L’Officiel Italia and now with Moon Boot. Allegra’s Instagram profile is a paradigm example of Italian sprezzatura, her photos and stylistic choices just oozing Italo-cool. While her profile is modest by global standards, her influence is outsize, an up-and-coming Italian tastemaker, present at every party that’s worth going to, connected to everyone worth knowing, and wearing everything you’d want to be seen in.

After Ruffini’s marriage to Francesca faltered, he’s seen dating the former Italian showgirl – and once host of Italian Paw Patrol – Federica Fontana.  The details are only coming out slowly in the Italian media, but what is known is that both Signore Ruffini and Signora Fontana met when they were both married after which they began their clandestine affair. They’ve since left their respective spouses and have been photographed together in appropriately exotic locations: Sardegna, St Moritz, the Maldives, Milan. Apart from the odd happy snap of the couple, the Italian paparazzi and media have been suspiciously sensitive about the scandal. It seems that being a billionaire and large buyer of advertising may have its benefits after all.

For a native of Como, it comes as no surprise that Ruffini has a passion for water. “I was born on a boat” is something Ruffini’s has claimed, which is not actually true, but attests to the fact that he’s been accustomed to treading decks since he was about 5 years old, his age when his father first bought a boat. His nautical acquisitions have been restrained by billionaire standards, the 55m $40M Atlante, and the smaller 27m companion yacht Atlantico, both fitted out by the Patrick Gilles e Dorothée Boissier, the same designers that also renovated his Lake Como Villa and St Mortiz apartment and have been involved in a significant number of the Moncler boutiques around the world. Incidentally, it was on board the smaller Atlantico in the Costa Smeralda in Sardegna that Ruffini was first photographed by Chi magazine (an Italian tabloid) conoodling Francesca Fontana – while his actual wife, Francesca Ruffini Stoppandi, their two children and respective partners - were aboard the larger Atlante, having just left Sardegna for the Balearic Islands in Spain.

Meanwhile, the older of his sons, Pietro has more recently worked with his father spearheading the family’s foray into hospitality. In a recent interview Pietro explained that the motivation was about the evolution of luxury from the possession of high-end products to having high-end experiences. Their first acquisition in 2018 was a stake in Langosteria, the renowned but uber-cool restaurant group founded by chef-entrepreneur Enrico Buonocore. Here, Pietro Ruffini, like his father, was applying the philosophy of buying luxury brands and taking them global, a rarity in the world of gastronomy. They’ve since expanded Langosteria from Milan to Paris, St Mortiz, Portofino and London, becoming the place where everyone from Brunello Cucinelli to Bernard Arnault comes to dine. No trip to Fashion Week in Milan and Paris is complete without a meal in one of his restaurants. There is talk that America might be on the horizon.

In a similar vein, the Ruffini's recently acquired a holding in Concettina ai Tre Santi, one of Naples most renowned pizzerias located in the Sanità, one of the most ancient quarters in the city. Under the stewardship fourth generation Ciro Oliva, Concettina has become a favourite of foodies around the globe. His story was recently featured in the documentary “Stella”, which followed Ciro’s attempt to win a Michelin star and put Neopolitan pizza on the global map. Pizza has been unfairly ignored by Michelin reviewers despite the dedication of their artisans and the quality they have achieved. It’s not hard to see what drew Ruffini to this small pizzeria and to imagine how he might take this gastronomic underdog from the Sanità in Naples to conquer the world, consistent with his idea of creating high-end global luxury platforms.

By billionaire standards, Ruffini is still relatively young at 61 and his latest moves in acquiring Stone Island and pushing into luxury experiences show that he not strictly following the usual luxury playbook pioneered by Arnault at LVMH and followed by other conglomerates such as Kering or Capri Holdings. He’s forging his own way by reinventing what luxury means and where luxury brands can go. He has built a family dynasty for the ages. Ruffini has been open that his aim is to make his dreams come true, to seek pleasure and have fun. Lucky that for the rest of us, that means making many of our dreams come true too.