Hold de Meo

There’s some natural skepticism around Luca de Meo’s recently unveiled turnaround strategy at Kering—and while not everyone is sure that his plan to double operating margins can work anytime soon, everyone in the industry wants to believe it will.

Given the rise of resale, combined with the overaccumulation of goods, de Meo sees luxury moving in a similar direction, and he appeared hell-bent on trying to convince Kering investors to care less about top-line growth and more about free cashflow. Photo: Courtesy of Kering

Lauren Sherman

April 20, 2026

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There’s been a story going around the luxury circuit that newish Kering C.E.O. Luca de Meo took a group of executives on a sightseeing expedition to Zara. During one poignant stop on the tour, he supposedly held up a t-shirt made by the Spanish fashion conglomerate—which was famously inspired by Toyota’s Just-in-Time manufacturing model when creating its vertically integrated supply chain. Was the quality of this t-shirt really any different than the version that Kering sells at Balenciaga for many multiples of the price?