The Century-Old Luxury Jewellery Brand With An A-List Following

Rihanna in Buccellati bracelets at Paris Fashion Week

Getty Images

When thinking of Italian fashion dynasties, the Fendis, Pradas and Missonis immediately spring to mind. But Buccellati, the high-end jewellery house, is another family-run brand that has survived the test of time â€" 100 years to be precise.

Founded in 1919 by Mario Buccellati, the jeweller became a global brand â€" with stores in the US, Asia and across Europe â€" thanks to the vision of his son, Gianmaria Buccellati, during the 1970s. Gianmaria’s own son, Andrea Buccellati, now heads up the business as honorary president and creative director, and Andrea’s daughter, Lucrezia Buccellati, joined the firm as co-creative designer in 2014. “Designing in the Buccellati style is inside of us,” she tells Vogue. “You’re born with it. That’s how we can continue the tradition. It’s been a part of my life since I was little.”

The Best Jewellery From The Met Gala 2019

Tradition is key to the Buccellati style. Each one of the house’s jewellery pieces is still handcrafted, using techniques that date back to the Renaissance, including rigato, an engraving method that involves etching fine parallel lines onto gold to create a sheen. “We’ve always used different techniques to other brands; you can recognise Buccellati pieces from afar,” notes Andrea. The brand has even invested in its own school to train up the highly skilled artisans its pieces require. “Engraving has been [largely] lost in the last 50, 60 years because it’s so expensive,” says Andrea. “[But] it’s very important for us to keep the quality of the workmanship.”

Alexa Chung at the 2018 Met Gala in a bespoke Buccellati necklace and earrings

Getty Images

Staying true to its identity over the past 100 years has also been key to the Milan-based brand’s success. Andrea’s sister and Buccellati’s global communication and marketing director Maria Cristina says: “It’s timeless; we don’t follow fashion.” A point perfectly illustrated by the Vintage collection being launched next month to celebrate the jeweller’s centenary. Among the 200, one-off pieces (half of which will go on sale) is a crystal necklace designed by Mario Buccellati for the Italian actress Eleonora Duse during the 1920s. “It’s one of the most amazing pieces,” says Maria Cristina. “It’s part of the family collection and not for sale obviously because [it’s a] historical piece.”

Buccellati pieces (which can cost up to six figures) undoubtedly appeal to a glamorous clientele, with celebrities like Rihanna, Alexa Chung and Jessica Alba among its fans, along with royalty. However, Maria Cristina believes that what truly connects its customers is a love of art. “They have a special affinity for art; they understand the work and the skill of the artisans,” she says.

Vogue Reveals The Royal Jewels Set To Make Auction History

The brand is currently expanding into the Far East. Around 30 per cent of Buccellati’s customers are in Asia, with plans to grow further â€" helped by Buccellati’s owners, Chinese conglomerate Gangsu Gangtai Holding, which bought a majority stake in the company in 2017. “Asia,” says Andrea, “is the most important market from the point of view of developing the brand.”

(Left to right) Lucrezia Buccellati, Andrea Buccellati, Maria Cristina Buccellati and Luca Buccellati

Courtesy of Buccellati

Attracting a younger customer is also a priority for the Italian jeweller. Enter Lucrezia, who is marrying age-old techniques with a modern gaze to appeal to a new audience. “Our collections are [now] focused on a younger generation,” says the 30-year-old. “With my design, I always think of women like me. We want much more simple, wearable jewellery.” This year, the house will launch limited-edition pieces from its Opera collection aimed at millennials. And when it comes to the next generation of Buccellatis? “I hope maybe one of my kids likes [jewellery],” Lucrezia says. “It’s amazing to all be working for this beautiful business and to see how it’s grown.”

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Retailer Global Fashion Group to list in Frankfurt as soon as July

Global Fashion Group, the emerging markets-focused online fashion retailer, is planning to go public as early as next month, in an effort to raise fresh funds for its fast-growing operations in countries such as Russia, Brazil and Indonesia.

The initial public offering is expected to raise about €300m, GFG said. The group will be listed on Frankfurt's Prime Standard market.

GFG is majority-owned by Kinnevik of Sweden, which holds about 35 per cent, and German tech incubator Rocket Internet, which has a stake of about 21 per cent. The company's business model is similar to that of Zalando, the European e-commerce group, which enjoyed early support from the Swedish and German investors. Zalando listed its shares on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in 2014 and has a market capitalisation of about €8.8bn. 

Founded eight years ago, GFG is run by two German co-chief executives, Christoph Barchewitz and Patrick Schmidt.

"We have built a great set of consumer brands," Mr Schmidt said in an interview. "We have more than 11m active consumers and did €1.5bn in sales last year. We are already profitable in half our markets. In terms of our development, scale and finances, we are now at a stage where we can become a successful public company." 

According to the latest set of full-year results, GFG increased net merchandise value — a measure of sales — by 23 per cent to €1.45bn over the course of 2018. The group reported an adjusted loss before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation last year of €49.8m, down from €98m the year before.

GFG was set up with a focus on markets ignored by established online fashion retailers from the US, Europe and China. It runs four e-commerce platforms that are market leaders in their respective regions: The Iconic, in Australia and New Zealand; Zalora in Asian countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines; Dafiti in Latin America; and La Moda in Russia and former states of the Soviet Union. 

According to GFG, the four platforms give the group exposure to more than 1bn potential customers, in regions where online sales are still relatively low. GFG calculates that online fashion sales account for 6 per cent in the markets it operates in, compared with 15 per cent in the EU, 20 per cent in the US, and 39 per cent in China.

The comparatively low number reflects at least in part logistics problems, especially in countries as large and disparate as Indonesia, Brazil and Russia. This has forced GFG to play a much more active role in the delivery of its goods, including on the "last mile" to customers' homes. E-commerce businesses in western Europe and the US typically leave the business of delivery to external companies.

"Our markets are about 10 years behind the US and Europe," said Mr Barchewitz. The planned IPO, he argued, would allow GFG to cement its position in regions that offered significant growth potential. 

"The reason why we are pursuing fundraising is that we have a great investment opportunity . . . We are not seeking to create an opportunity for our existing shareholders to sell down," he added. "We are really looking to raise more capital to keep building the next [logistics] centre, create the next innovation on the technology side, pursue market opportunities and launch the next category."

In most markets where GFG is active, bricks-and-mortar retailers are the most significant competitor, the co-chief executive said.

Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Berenberg and HSBC are advising on the IPO.

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Lessons From The Met Gala: How Fashion's Biggest Event Can Inform Your Brand's Personalization

Kacey Musgraves at the 2019 Costume Institute Benefit Gala, Met Gala, celebrating the opening of "Camp: Notes on Fashion". (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC)

zz/Elaine Wells/STAR MAX/IPx

Lessons From The Met Gala: How Fashion's Biggest Event Can Inform Your Brand's Personalization

When it comes to expression of individuality, you'd be hard-pressed to find a more visual example of that than the annual Met Gala.

This is true of any year, but the 2019 gala, which was held on May 6 and hosted with the theme of "Camp: Notes on Fashion," was truly remarkable in the array of dresses, suits, and ensembles that the high-fashion and Hollywood attendees wore.

There was Billy Porter wearing actual golden wings. Katy Perry in a chandelier. Kacey Musgraves as Barbie, driving up to the event in a real pink convertible. Lady Gaga in not one, but four different looks, each revealed by removing a layer of clothing.

There wasn't a thing that was mass-produced or generic about any of it.

Now, to a degree, this has always been the case for celebrities and the very wealthy. Status and money have always granted people access to custom, rare, or highly individualized items, from fashion to furniture.

That's no longer true, however, as we've seen with the overwhelming trend toward personalization and customization that brands across all industries are following.

Even Coca-Cola, a drink that would certainly be classified as "accessible," employed personalization with its "Share a Coke" campaign, which printed customer names on drink cans. The campaign resulted in a 2.5 percent increase in total sales.

In other words, this intense love of individuality—and not only that, but the need to express it—that is on such sharp display at events like the Met Gala is a perfect example of today's consumer landscape. Connected consumers don't just want personalization. They expect it. And they expect it from everything from their Amazon home page to their high fashion.

So how can your brand address this need? How can you make personalization work for you?

Recognize that connected consumers are independent, yet interconnected

One of the most important things that brands must realize is that connected consumers are both deeply independent and deeply interconnected. This is one of the four paradoxes of the connected consumer that we at Zen Media explored in our research report, Marketing to Gods: The Definitive Guide to Reaching, Engaging, and Retaining the Modern, Empowered Consumer.

This means that although consumers will spend significant amounts of time searching for the product that matches their needs exactly, and are less likely to be swayed by advertising, they're also highly dependent on others for input (in the form of, for example, online reviews) and validation of their purchase choices.

Our research found that consumers typically sifted through 50-100 products when making a major purchase. Finding the exact right product—one that, as our research participant Nicole put it, checks every box—is so important that consumers will instinctively fill whatever personalization gaps the brand has left open. Creating spreadsheets of products organized by category, for example, is one way we found consumers personalizing their brand experience.

Brands that can close this gap will see real positive results. Take the fashion brand Asos, which has invested heavily in personalization and customization tools like chatbots, AI, and voice technology. In 2018, after rolling out many of these improvements, sales grew by a startling 26 percent.

Asos also debuted a feature designed to help customers organize the products they had in their "saved" lists. After finding that 43 percent of customers had more than 50 products on the list at any one time, the brand created Boards to help users sort their items into categories. The feature also includes an AI component that will suggest board categories for customers' saved items.

In our own work at Zen, we created the Chase BizMobile for the express purpose of offering personalized, and personal, advice to Chase's small business customers in different cities around the country. Small business owners can sign up for a free session with one of our digital marketing experts, who will recommend strategies to help them meet their specific business goals.

It's almost impossible to overstate the importance of customization and personalization to today's consumers. None of us wants to be thought of as a demographic—as a suburban woman between the ages of 29 and 34. We want to be known as Nicole. As James. As Shama.

It may not be golden wings, but it's an expression of individuality just the same.

Read More

Former Pets.com chief to list fashion venture later this year

The former chief executive of Pets.com, one of the notorious stock listings of the internet bubble, is returning to public markets with another venture.

Julie Wainwright led Pets.com through its initial public offering in 2000 before the company was liquidated eight months later, a moment that presaged the end of the dotcom boom. Ms Wainwright's next venture is The RealReal, a second-hand store for luxury brands, that will list later this year.

The company links buyers hunting for cut-price Hermès scarves and Manolo Blahnik heels with sellers keen to lighten their closets. The RealReal operates an online trading platform and has nine brick-and-mortar consignment stores across seven US cities including a near-6,000sq metre flagship location in Soho, New York's fashion mecca.

The company on Friday filed to list its shares on Nasdaq, according to documents lodged with the US securities regulator. The company has 135m shares and will outline the amount it aims to float closer to its IPO date, which has not yet been set.

The RealReal last year grew total revenue 55 per cent to $207m but chalked up a net loss of $75.8m for the year. The company has raised $288m in private capital since launching eight years ago, including a $115m haul last July.

Ms Wainwright has held a variety of leadership roles in the technology sector and launched The RealReal in 2011 with $100,000. The business marked her first fashion venture and targets a neglected corner of the business — leading marques bristle at the idea of dealing in second-hand goods, but consumers are hungry to buy and sell used high-end fashion at a reasonable price.

The company will pass along an estimated $500m to the sellers on its platform this year, a sum that Ms Wainwright believes eventually flows back to the high-end brands that have snubbed the second-hand market.

"That's a lot of money," Ms Wainwright told the Financial Times last year. "It's not like money that goes to someone's education. It's woohoo! Fashion budget!"

The RealReal offers a contrast to the common narrative sweeping the retail sector. As the pressure from ecommerce companies such as Amazon has forced many to shut their doors, the fashion consignment group has expanded. Its latest store was unveiled this month on Madison Avenue on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, where would-be sellers can drop off items that are evaluated by specialists before being listed for sale.

The plan to list comes after a burst of IPOs in recent months as private companies tap public equity markets. Shares in jeans retailer Levi Strauss surged 30 per cent on the day it listed, while Beyond Meats, a plant-based food producer, jumped 42 per cent on its first day of trading. Others have faltered. Lyft and Uber, the lossmaking ride-hailing rivals, have performed dismally and remain below their listing prices.

"The first year we were $10m in gross revenues," Ms Wainwright said last year. "And then I thought, well, I'm on to something, I'd better scale it faster. And so, since then, I've raised $288m."

Pets.com remains a symbol of the excesses of the internet bubble. Its initial public offering raised $82.5m but eight months later the company had gone to dust. The company's liquidation marked a change in sentiment for internet stocks that triggered a bear market that wiped out half the value of US stocks over a two-year period.

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Custora Named One Of The Leading Break-Out Tech Start-Ups Innovating the Fashion and Retail Industry from The Lead

NEW YORK--(Business Wire)--Custora, a customer intelligence platform that helps retailers drive incremental revenue by making use of their customer data, today was named one of 'The Leading 100' from The Lead, an event and research company that bridges the fashion and retail industry with Silicon Valley. The highly anticipated annual research list recognizes the break-out technology start-ups driving innovation in the fashion and retail industry. Companies from across the industry value chain — including marketing, e-commerce, in-store technology, payments, supply chain, manufacturing, design and sustainability — were nominated and considered.

"Custora is honored to be among the innovative companies in the Leading 100. Consumers are changing fast, and keeping up is tough. Today, being in retail means anticipating your customers' future needs. To do so, brands need to make use of their customer data to grow those relationships. The leading retail brands are building the capabilities to better understand their customers and use those insights in new and inspiring ways. We call this 'Customer-Obsessed Commerce,' and Custora was built to help companies make this transformation. Custora's solutions help over 100 customer-obsessed retailers attract high-value customers, convert one time buyers, prevent churn, and reduce reliance on promotions," said Corey Pierson, Co Founder and CEO of Custora.

The Leading 100 companies are representative of game-changing approaches and technologies that are likely to disrupt existing markets and entrenched players. Custora's work in the retail industry has made them the perfect fit for this award. They represent the next generation fashion, retail and commerce technology ecosystem, while at the same time, creating high-growth businesses that offer outsized opportunity upside for investors. It is The Lead's belief that this group collectively signals the future of the industry.

"When looking at these companies, we paid special attention to their business models, market opportunity and funding. It's a crowded field. That said, it was important for us to select companies that are on a strong path of commercialization and are approaching exit velocity, so that we can be confident that they will not only be here in a couple of years, but have the longevity to have an outsized impact on the industry," said Awais Khan, Head of Research at The Lead.

All companies were vetted and selected using a rigorous methodology. After reviewing the nominations, The Lead's Head of Research, Awais Khan, led in-depth analysis into each company. The process included a detailed look at each company's business with a focus on innovation, market opportunity, media buzz, team, commercialization, competition & investor value creation.

ABOUT CUSTORA

Custora, the leading cloud-based retail customer intelligence platform, helps retailers drive incremental revenue by making better use of their customer data. Companies use Custora to acquire higher value customers, increase purchase frequency, and improve team efficiency. Custora serves more than 100 customer obsessed brands around the world including Nordstrom, Ann Inc., Tiffany & Co., Crocs, and Teleflora For information about Custora visit www.custora.com.

ABOUT THE LEAD

The Lead bridges the fashion and retail industry with the global Silicon Valley, empowering the fashion business' transition to digital centricity. In partnership with industry leaders, The Lead conducts research, produces a quarterly publication and holds a series of events centered on emerging technology, and its adoption, across the fashion-retail-commerce value chain.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190528005029/en/

Media: Lexie GraceyNorth 6th Agency (for Custora)Custora@n6a.com

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Lessons From The Met Gala: How Fashion's Biggest Event Can Inform Your Brand's Personalization

Kacey Musgraves at the 2019 Costume Institute Benefit Gala, Met Gala, celebrating the opening of "Camp: Notes on Fashion". (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC)

zz/Elaine Wells/STAR MAX/IPx

Lessons From The Met Gala: How Fashion's Biggest Event Can Inform Your Brand's Personalization

When it comes to expression of individuality, you'd be hard-pressed to find a more visual example of that than the annual Met Gala.

This is true of any year, but the 2019 gala, which was held on May 6 and hosted with the theme of "Camp: Notes on Fashion," was truly remarkable in the array of dresses, suits, and ensembles that the high-fashion and Hollywood attendees wore.

There was Billy Porter wearing actual golden wings. Katy Perry in a chandelier. Kacey Musgraves as Barbie, driving up to the event in a real pink convertible. Lady Gaga in not one, but four different looks, each revealed by removing a layer of clothing.

There wasn't a thing that was mass-produced or generic about any of it.

Now, to a degree, this has always been the case for celebrities and the very wealthy. Status and money have always granted people access to custom, rare, or highly individualized items, from fashion to furniture.

That's no longer true, however, as we've seen with the overwhelming trend toward personalization and customization that brands across all industries are following.

Even Coca-Cola, a drink that would certainly be classified as "accessible," employed personalization with its "Share a Coke" campaign, which printed customer names on drink cans. The campaign resulted in a 2.5 percent increase in total sales.

In other words, this intense love of individuality—and not only that, but the need to express it—that is on such sharp display at events like the Met Gala is a perfect example of today's consumer landscape. Connected consumers don't just want personalization. They expect it. And they expect it from everything from their Amazon home page to their high fashion.

So how can your brand address this need? How can you make personalization work for you?

Recognize that connected consumers are independent, yet interconnected

One of the most important things that brands must realize is that connected consumers are both deeply independent and deeply interconnected. This is one of the four paradoxes of the connected consumer that we at Zen Media explored in our research report, Marketing to Gods: The Definitive Guide to Reaching, Engaging, and Retaining the Modern, Empowered Consumer.

This means that although consumers will spend significant amounts of time searching for the product that matches their needs exactly, and are less likely to be swayed by advertising, they're also highly dependent on others for input (in the form of, for example, online reviews) and validation of their purchase choices.

Our research found that consumers typically sifted through 50-100 products when making a major purchase. Finding the exact right product—one that, as our research participant Nicole put it, checks every box—is so important that consumers will instinctively fill whatever personalization gaps the brand has left open. Creating spreadsheets of products organized by category, for example, is one way we found consumers personalizing their brand experience.

Brands that can close this gap will see real positive results. Take the fashion brand Asos, which has invested heavily in personalization and customization tools like chatbots, AI, and voice technology. In 2018, after rolling out many of these improvements, sales grew by a startling 26 percent.

Asos also debuted a feature designed to help customers organize the products they had in their "saved" lists. After finding that 43 percent of customers had more than 50 products on the list at any one time, the brand created Boards to help users sort their items into categories. The feature also includes an AI component that will suggest board categories for customers' saved items.

In our own work at Zen, we created the Chase BizMobile for the express purpose of offering personalized, and personal, advice to Chase's small business customers in different cities around the country. Small business owners can sign up for a free session with one of our digital marketing experts, who will recommend strategies to help them meet their specific business goals.

It's almost impossible to overstate the importance of customization and personalization to today's consumers. None of us wants to be thought of as a demographic—as a suburban woman between the ages of 29 and 34. We want to be known as Nicole. As James. As Shama.

It may not be golden wings, but it's an expression of individuality just the same.

Read More

‘A fairytale brand’: PrettyLittleThing joins fashion A-list

In his pink trilby, matching velour tracksuit and £1,200 Chanel trainers Umar Kamani looks every inch the fashion princeling.

Sitting on a vintage leather couch in his office, his personal photographer snapping away in the background, the 31-year-old is talking about his fast-growing fashion empire PrettyLittleThing and the fame game.

With more than 500,000 Instagram followers and an A-list feed that has featured him posing alongside Jennifer Lopez, Drake and Manchester City striker Sergio Agüero, Kamani is a chief executive for the Kardashian age.

“I’ve got an inbox full of TV offers,” he says, adding that Hello! and OK! magazines are also eager to do photoshoots.

“I get asked all the time: ‘Do you want to be famous?’ because I dress a certain way and I’m [moving] in certain circles. If I wanted to be famous it would be very easy for me to do that … but I want to be respected for what I do.”

Kamani has followed in the footsteps of his fashion entrepreneur father Mahmud Kamani, who co-founded Boohoo, the stock market-listed online fashion group that specialises in selling fast, cheap fashion to teens and twentysomethings. Since 2016 it has also owned a controlling stake in PrettyLittleThing.

Kamani with Jennifer Lopez. Photograph: Instagram

The success of Boohoo means the Manchester-based Kamani family have rocketed up the UK’s rich list. They have banked £286m from selling Boohoo shares and still have an almost 30% stake, worth more than £800m. But the jewel in the crown of the Boohoo business is Umar’s PrettyLittleThing.

Kamani started PrettyLittleThing with his elder brother Adam in 2012 when the recent business graduates saw an opportunity to cash in on a trend for shamballa bracelets after celebrities such as Jay-Z were photographed wearing the Buddhist-inspired beads. “There was a massive trend for shamballa bracelets with little diamantes on them,” he explains. “We were just out of university and figuring ourselves out.”

Kamani (right) with his brother Samir. Photograph: Kevork S Djansezian/Getty Images

It would turn out to be one of the few trends PrettyLittleThing missed, because the deal struck with a Groupon-style discount website fell through. But seven years later PrettyLittleThing, famed for its bubblegum pink branding and unicorn mascot, has turned into a goldmine.

Umar Kamani and the company’s finance director, Paul Papworth, are still sitting on a 34% stake, which analysts say is worth at least £400m.

When Boohoo floated in 2014, the prospectus included the option to acquire PrettyLittleThing for £5m within three years. In 2016, Boohoo paid £3.3m for 66%, leaving the management with the rest as part of a performance-related deal. That deal expires in 2022, when Boohoo has the option to acquire it at market value using cash or Boohoo shares.

When Boohoo bought its stake in PrettyLittleThing, three years ago, it had sales of £17m. It has grown staggeringly since then, with sales hitting £374m last year, a rate of growth that puts it on course to overtake the Boohoo brand this year.

Kamani is certain that growth can continue, making the company even more valuable to shareholders “if I do my job right”.

“It’s about the 66% from the group perspective … would that have been worth as much as it is now if I had walked away three years ago?”

At a time when many established high street brands, from Topshop to New Look, are struggling, PrettyLittleThing has captured the zeitgeist among young female shoppers, using social media influencers instead of glossy magazines to reach them.

With its sexy billboard campaigns shot in exotic locations, the “girly” brand aims to sell a dream. “The reason we have pink unicorns is to create a fairytale world for the customer,” he explains. “When you go to Disneyworld and … everyone’s got a smile on their face, there’s nothing real about that. It’s a fairytale brand I’m trying to create. It should be a place where you come to find confidence and inspiration.”

Kamani poses with musicians Lioness, Lady Leshurr, Stefflon Don, and Ms Banks (l-r). Photograph: Aaron J Thornton/Getty Images

There is nothing fairytale-like about the location of the company. Its headquarters are in a former mill in the Manchester suburb of Ancoats, which was once home to the Kamani family’s knitting factory. PrettyLittleThing’s warehouse is in Sheffield.

With 350 staff, the Ancoats building is teaming with millennials: in one area a model is preening in front of a mirror in a Helena Christensen-style bustier bodice before a photoshoot in one of four studios. Plastic palm trees and rails of brightly coloured clothes decorate the inside. The exterior is graffitied and protected with barbed wire.

Kamani articulates in the vaguest terms a new strategy that involves inveigling itself into the hearts of its 5 million shoppers and becoming their “best friend”.

With its £5 dresses and £3 tops, PrettyLittleThing is one of the brands accused of fuelling a throwaway fast fashion culture, which has been linked to exploitation of low-paid workers in UK factories. But Kamani argues the brand, which has embraced the diversity and body positivity movement by always including larger models in its adverts, is a force for good and is trying to become more sustainable. It recently linked up with the ReGain app to encourage shoppers to recycle unwanted clothes.

“I love fashion,” says Kamani. “I was always a chubby kid and clothes gave me confidence. People forget what clothes can do for your emotional state. It builds my character and sets the tone for the day. Young girls should be able to turn to clothes for comfort and to make them feel better about themselves.”

Kamani’s grandfather Abdullah, who escaped war-torn Kenya in the 60s to start a new life in the north-west of England with his wife and four children, is a role model within the entrepreneurial family. “We are a very close family … but we don’t get involved in each other’s businesses,” he explains. Brother Adam runs his own property firm, while Samir, who is 23, runs the group’s BoohooMan clothing brand, which uses Spurs and England footballer Dele Alli as its “face”.

Kamani adds: “I have full autonomy to run this business how we want to run it â€" and that was something they wanted me to do. It’s got to this point because we have run it in a very controlled way with a clear message.”

That evening, Kamani posts pictures on Instagram of two new bespoke Rolls-Royces, complete with personalised number plates. His office is like a teenage boy’s dream bedroom, with a bar and pool table. His social media feed is a stream of images of him in glamorous locations and with celebrity friends. But he insists his feet are firmly on the ground: “I know my life looks glamorous on Instagram but I put up what I choose to put up. I don’t post pictures of my meetings or reading through data and speaking to America until 1am or 2am in the morning.”

In his downtime, Kamani likes to box or play chess. He is also partial to sudoko puzzles â€" and after spending time in the LA bubble where PrettyLittleThing has opened an office, he likes nothing better than to cruise the aisles of Marks & Spencer.

“It’s very easy to form an ego and get distracted by fame. I’ve nearly fallen into these traps myself but my number one desire is for this brand to blossom. It could become one of the biggest brands of all time, ever.

“I feel the hunger more than ever.”

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