A fashion mogul wise beyond his years

Having been CEO of the company for about three years, Trussardi said he cannot tell what influences or changes he has brought to it.

"I am trying to stick to what we are," he said. "I don't want to make big changes, but only move faster to develop the business, for example, in this market."

The company's 440 stores now give it a presence in 23 countries. Among them, seven are flagships. Although the brand has been known in big cities such as Beijing and Shanghai through its Tru Trussardi collection, it was not until the beginning of 2012 that it introduced its primary line.

Tomaso Trussardi said he believes the market is now ready for a brand such as Trussardi's, which, he said, has much more than a popular logo.

The Chinese, he said, now are no longer obsessed with logos and are instead more attracted to "craftsmanship", "quality products" and "Italian lifestyle".

"Chinese customers now are more mature," he said.

His beliefs find support in the two latest annual luxury reports released by Bain and McKinsey.

Bruno Lannes, partner at Bain in China and the lead author of the China Luxury Market Study, said luxury shoppers in China have gone from "showing off" to "recognizing and learning".

He said the change will pose difficulties to luxury brands, which will lose customers unless they offer them something more relevant than "the status of those brands".

Shoppers in second- and third-tier cities in China continue to acknowledge being attracted to products with "remarkable logos", but 65 percent of the shoppers Bain polled from Shanghai and Beijing said they plan to buy fewer luxuries bearing well-known logos.

McKinsey, on the other hand, found that two-thirds of the respondents to its Chinese Luxury Consumer Survey "agreed or strongly agreed" that they prefer luxury goods that are understated. And more than half of the respondents said they think "showing off luxury goods is in bad taste".

Two years ago, only 37 percent of the respondents expressed the same view.

Q+A | Tomaso Trussardi

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