Luxury Briefing: Canali is betting on leisurewear to lure younger customers

The family-owned Italian menswear company, based in Sovico, outside Milan, operates around 190 boutiques and is distributed through more than 1,000 additional stores. Its core customer has traditionally come to the 92-year-old brand for understated Italian tailoring, formal jackets and made-to-measure clothing.

Under new creative director Alessio Lillocci, who debuted his first collection for the brand during Milan Men’s Fashion Week on Sunday, Canali is expanding its emphasis on knitwear, footwear and relaxed wardrobe categories as it works to attract younger customers without weakening its authority in tailoring.

Lillocci joined the company after spending more than 20 years at Brunello Cucinelli from 2002 to 2023, where he served as head of the men’s style office. He subsequently worked as Prada Group’s men’s ready-to-wear collections director in 2024. 

The three brands occupy distinct positions in luxury menswear: Canali jackets, which typically sit around $2,200-$3,700, offer specialist Italian tailoring and relative value; Brunello Cucinelli blazers, which can reach about $4,900, reflect a focus on quality materials and the ultra-luxury lifestyle; and Prada men’s jackets generally run from roughly $3,300-$6,800, with a more fashion-driven and directional positioning.

Lillocci’s appointment has given Canali a more identifiable creative lead, with the brand’s recent collections developed by its internal style and product teams. Likewise, A.P.C. appointed Ludivine Poiblanc, the influential stylist and creative consultant, as artistic director in May 2026, after decades of founder-led oversight. Dior consolidated its men’s, women’s and couture collections under Jonathan Anderson in June 2025, after his acclaimed 11-year run at Loewe made him one of fashion’s most closely watched designers. Hermès, meanwhile, named Grace Wales Bonner to lead men’s ready-to-wear in October 2025; she is known for bringing ideas around Black identity, the African diaspora and British tailoring into luxury menswear, as well as for her successful Adidas collaborations.

Lillocci describes himself as “a product man,” rather than primarily as a designer. And, as a rarity, he sits across from both the product and design teams.

“There is nothing that I had to create from scratch,” Lillocci told Glossy through an interpreter ahead of the presentation. “What I had to do was put [the ingredients of Canali’s signature pieces] together in a more contemporary way.”

That approach comes as luxury brands face greater pressure to prove the value of their products. In its spring luxury study, released on June 25, Bain & Company and Altagamma said personal luxury goods sales fell 2% at current exchange rates in 2025, the latest completed year, to approximately $407 billion. Based on performance through mid-June, Bain expects the market to grow 2-4% in 2026, but said consumers are becoming more selective and are scrutinizing products and prices more closely.

Footwear and leather goods remain under pressure, according to Bain, while apparel is holding up better. The consultancy also found that younger shoppers are helping to drive luxury growth in the U.S., with consumers under age 35 increasing their spending at around 4 percentage points faster than older customers.

For Canali, the commercial tension lies in reaching that younger audience while retaining the traditional customer who already trusts the brand’s suits and jackets.

“The base of our customer is still a more sartorial customer,” Lillocci said. But, he added, Canali is seeing younger shoppers approach the business through stores and events, drawn to both its history and product quality — and they are tracking down brands known for these values on social media.

“There is some kind of a specific allure to this brand,” he said. “Even younger generations are attracted to the true values of quality.” 

And Canali has a credible foundation for that message: Founded as a men’s tailoring workshop in Triuggio in 1934, it remains family-owned and produces entirely in Italy, with 70% made in its own five Italian production centers and the remainder handled by closely monitored domestic suppliers. Online and on Instagram, Canali is presenting its craftsmanship through more casual styling and lifestyle campaigns, including “Craftsmanship in Motion,” which featured 1960s and ’70s grand-touring cars.

Lillocci is not introducing new categories. Instead, he is directing greater attention toward knitwear, leather, trousers and shoes, using Canali’s existing tailoring knowledge to strengthen products suited to less formal occasions.

“The collection will be moving to an even more leisure direction,” he said. “It still is based on those ingredients,” referring to the brand’s craftsmanship, construction and fabric expertise.

Canali’s spring 2027 collection, titled “On the Spice Route,” includes lightweight cotton and cotton-silk knitwear, suede blousons, nappa leather, and carrot-fit trousers. Runway tailoring was styled with V-neck knits, technical outerwear and bucket hats, while the blue blazer was offered across different weights and constructions.

Footwear was substantially reworked through SoftGoodyear constructions, hybrid shoes, boat shoes, sandals and espadrilles. A Canali spokesperson said the category is already performing well, though they declined to provide sales figures.

“The shoes are a strong focus,” Lillocci said. “The collection really increased in terms of styles, but also in terms of research.”

Knitwear is another important category. Lillocci introduced openwork techniques, structured stitches and a lightweight yarn called Nuvola cotton.

The company is presenting the assortment as complete looks. Lillocci has asked that outfits be photographed both with and without outer layers, showing customers how individual garments can work in different situations.

“I like to give a full-look concept to help the customers understand how to wear every single look,” Lillocci said.

Canali is positioning its pricing and its product quality as competitive advantages. Lillocci argued that years of logo-driven consumption are giving way to closer examination of craftsmanship, longevity and cost.

“This is a specific moment where customers ask for reassurance,” he said. “They ask for value for money, and this is a brand that has always had it, because we have extremely high quality, which is correctly priced. It’s not overpriced.”

He added, “Before, [luxury] was more logo-related. Now it’s more substance and value-related.”

That view closely reflects the challenge identified by Bain: Heritage alone is no longer enough to sustain demand, and brands that chase relevance without a credible product foundation risk losing consumer trust.

50% of luxury shoppers now use AI, according to new Bain & Altagamma study

AI is already part of the luxury shopping journey: Bain found that around 50% of luxury consumers use it, including 25% for brand and product discovery and 67% for product comparison. The data was revealed in its new report, released on June 25.

Luxury brands are responding by reworking both on-site search and attempting to control how their products appear in external AI tools. Brunello Cucinelli redesigned its site around more editorial, conversational discovery in January, while Sephora introduced shopping experiences that let customers search, compare and build baskets through natural-language prompts in March. Other companies like Zegna and LVMH are improving product data, descriptions and third-party authority so their products are more likely to surface in ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and other answer engines.

“The winners over the next few years won’t be whoever shouts loudest about AI, but whoever invests now with a clear strategy and governance behind it,” Federica Levato, senior partner at Bain & Company, told Glossy. “In an AI-shaped journey, a brand has to be meaningful to both people and machines.”

Executive moves

• Balenciaga has appointed former Nike, Timberland and Vans executive Drieke Leenknegt as chief marketing officer, effective June 25, reporting to CEO Gianfranco Gianangeli and joining the executive committee.
• Julien Dossena is exiting Rabanne after 13 years as creative director, with the Puig-owned brand set to announce his successor at a later date amid wider management changes.
• Versace CEO Emmanuel Gintzburger has resigned effective June 23, after four years leading the brand through its roughly $1.42 billion acquisition by Prada Group and the appointment of Pieter Mulier as chief creative officer, with new governance to be announced.

News to know

• The impracticality of sweaty, dehydrated fashion editors was on the minds of brand teams this Men’s Fashion Week in Paris. Start times of shows like Dior were moved to the morning, Rick Owens put out blow-up jackets with built-in fan air circulation, and Thom Browne’s team handed out parasols amid the 111-degree Fahrenheit heat in Paris.
• HSG has completed its acquisition of a majority stake in Golden Goose, with Temasek and True Light Capital joining as minority investors, Permira retaining a strategic minority stake, Silvio Campara remaining CEO and former Gucci chief Marco Bizzarri becoming non-executive chairman.
• According to reporting this week from the Wall Street Journal, European households are spending far less than their U.S. counterparts despite rising incomes, with eurozone consumption up 5.5% since 2019 versus 18% in the U.S., creating a drag on regional growth and increasing luxury brands’ reliance on American and Asian shoppers.

Listen in

In this week’s episode of the Glossy Podcast, senior fashion reporter Danny Parisi, editor-in-chief Jill Manoff and international reporter Zofia Zwieglinska break down the post-bankruptcy version of Saks Global, from its smaller store footprint and off-price exit to the potential for its vendor repayments to make the retailer a more attractive brand partner. Listen here.

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