S14 E02: Stefano Peccatori, President & CEO of Rizzoli International

[music] You're listening to the luxury item, the podcast on the business of luxury and the people and companies that are shaping the future of the luxury industry. Here's your host, Scott Kerr. The best coffee table books are fascinating literary creations, part art object, part photographic ode, part textual reflection that lend insight to the interests of the owners. While libraries and bookshelves are full of novels, half-read, or to be read maybe someday, coffee table books serve as personal statements. One of the leaders in publishing coffee table books is Rizoli. Rizoli, New York, joined such prestigious American institutions as Tiffany, Sacks, and Cartier when it first opened the Rizoli bookstore on Fifth Avenue in 1964. In the following years, its landmark building in New York became the center for the company's national expansion, adding new bookstores throughout the country and a decade later establishing an eminent publishing house renowned for its high-quality illustrated books. Rizoli, New York, began its publishing operation in 1974 and has become a leader in the fashion, interior design, culinary art, architecture, and photography fields. Rizoli was acquired by leading publishing house Mondadori Group in 2016. My guest on the luxury item is Stefano Peccatori, president and CEO of Rizoli International Publications. Peccatori, who was appointed to the role in 2023, has served in the Mondadori Group for 30 years, is in charge of the publishing, commercial, financial, and administrative units of two of Mondadori Group companies operating in the United States. Welcome to the luxury items Stefano. Hello, Scott. I'm so proud to be here with you and some honor to be with you. So, yeah, thank you so much for joining me. I was recently watching the room next door, the new film with Julian Moore until the Swinson and the opening scene is Julian Moore's character, signing copies of her book in the iconic Rizoli bookstore here in New York City, where she receives news about an old friend that sets the stage for essentially for the rest of the film's narrative. It's a spectacular shot of the store, Rizoli bookstore is celebrating 60 years of bookselling while Rizoli, New York, the publishing arm marks 50 years of producing these high quality luxury illustrated books. Could you talk about its founder, entrepreneur, Angelo Rizoli, and how he found his way into the world of bookselling, publishing, and even film production? Angelo Rizoli, what a man. He was a guy born in 1887 who truly made his own luck. As you see, in America was a self-made man, started out in an orphanage, learned the typography, and bam! Founded his own printing press at just 20 years old, so that's something great. By 1927, he was already a big name in the Italian publishing, going head to head with Arnold Monde-Dori, but now he's our company by the way. But he wasn't just a business-a-b, he had a real love for art and culture. That's a very typical of Italian entrepreneur. We live in a country full of art and culture, and so it's easy to fall in love with art and culture. And Rizoli was really someone really involved in that. He loved to travel, and so he often came to New York, and he saw that New York was missing something in the early 60s. No bookstore for those beautiful art books that were everywhere in Italy. So he put about opening a new bookstore, and that's how the first that it sold in bookstore on the fifth avenue came to be in 1964. By the way, my birthday, that's a birthday DNA link with Rizoli. And it quickly became the sport for art, design lovers, and I would say a sort of saloon for the eye society. People used to, there was a coffee in there, so people used to go there, also to meet each other, to have a conversation, certain kind of people. And Oriana Falacci, the famous Italian writer, had his office and home at the third floor of the building. So I mean, there was a fault of a cultural club related to the bookstore. A few years later, in 1974, Rizoli started the book in English. So after the bookstore, 10 year after the bookstore opening, we started publishing books, bringing our Italian DNA. And I would say, "Ship and artistic flair to the US market." Somehow like the word of "facient and design" to indeed in the past for their potential. So how did people start finding out about it? How did it start becoming popular? Initially, we started with architecture title. Due to the passion of our first publisher, Rizoli New York publisher, John Franco Maracelli, he's now very, very old, but he's a leading figure in the publishing world of architecture in the certain books. And he started our publications with architecture title. At that stage, we were just publishing a few titles. I would say five titles per year. And now we are close to 150 titles annually. A lot of distance from that beginning. We published books on all sorts of topics such as high-facient, for sure, art, texture, interior design, photography, gardening, but also, I would say, sports and food, not so much, but also sports and food. Back to your question about Angel Rizoli, it's interesting to underline that his influence extended beyond publishing. He was indeed a significant figure in the film industry. His career is related, strictly related to Federico Filini. He was making a masterpiece like La Dolce Vita and many others by Federico Filini, but also from many other directives. He was an entrepreneur with cultural interest, very rich man, one of the richest men at the time in Italy. But as you know, Rizoli family lost everything in the following years. And today Rizoli is part of the Mondadori group, amazing in Milano. We are lucky because our office are in the landmark of Cagnimaio building in close in the summer of Milano. And nowadays Rizoli in New York with 150 titles for a year distributes its publication in more than 70 countries across five continents. We did our job. And yeah, you did a great job. And the Rizoli bookstore on West 57th Street was a cultural landmark. The store was set in this six-story townhouse and famous for its elegant structure, elaborately decorated ceiling, enormous cast iron chandeliers, you know, ample collections of international design, photography and landscape books. And Italian journalist actually described it as a place of warmth inside skyscrapers. Rizoli's lease expired in 2014. And after being denied landmark status, the building was ultimately demolished to make way for a new development. And from what I remember, for many people at the time saying goodbye to that location felt like something precious was being wrenched away from them. And I remember, you remember me a very sad moment in our history because losing the 57th Street store was tough. It really was. I remember I was not there at the time, but I remember from people that was involved in the managing of the store that they told me about many New Yorkers people gathering in front of the bookstore. To say goodbye and to try to protest again the clothes. And we received a lot of money. many, many letters because at bedtime no main working but letters. We've private letter from people everywhere, said of the closure of the 57th Street Store. As you told, and as we did, we did, we told before, 57th Street Store was really placed to be in New York at bedtime. And so, fine, a new location was not an easy job. What we tried to do when we decided to reopening in Nomad was all about keeping that ritoli spirit alive. We searched all over for a location that had the same energy. And the flat iron district just clicked. It's got history, but it's also got, I would say, that creative mass. When we entered 10 years ago, was not like now. I mean, today is really very interesting and vibrant place to be at that time was not as now, but we understood that it could become a place interesting for our bookstore. And the new space is different, sure, but we've worked hard to recreate the feeling of the original store. So we kept the furniture of the original store and we adapted to the new location. And from we kept the hand pick and books and the classic design of the shops, included the fornazetti, bespoke was wallpaper. Fornazetti, the famous artist, Italian artist, and we are very proud to have his special bespoke wallpaper. And he has always been a good friend of the ritoli. And by the way, we just published a beautiful book about his archive. He's someone want to be dive on his work. It's really some very interesting artists. And it's still, nowadays, I think that the ritoli bookstore is still a heaven for book lovers and creative. Just like Angela ritoli wanted. As you told at the beginning, hey, we'll do our choose ritoli bookstore for its filming location. And it was so emotional for us to be there during the shot of the movie. And we are so proud of it. So I'm happy to say that ritoli bookstore left 57 street location, but the new location still got that ritoli magic. Yeah, it sure does. Artbook publishing houses like Resoli and others have built recognizable brands over the years. So what distinguishes the Resoli brand? That's a very interesting question. And I'm happy to try to give my answer because it's important to explain what makes a company, that company. And for its only, I think it's always been about quality and telling us a good story, story telling, I would say. I always tell my people our books are and just objects. They are piece of art in Verona, right? It one indeed is unique. Everything is customized, formats, materials, design. And this is done to match the content inside the book. We are, I would say cultural driven from for our books. And so we need to match content and and form. If you come to our office in New York and I we just moved our office in 49 West 27 Street in the radio wave building after 30 years being in Park Avenue South. And I will be happy to have you with me. And you browse you browse in our bookshelves. You'll find many different books. Fashion books like Tom Ford, our best seller ever more than 200,000 copies. So that's 150 euros. So yeah, it's very, very important. Yeah, very good. Yeah, it's a lucrative. Yeah. Or Gucci. Timeless classic. I come books like Diane Keaton or Farrell or L.Q. J. Architecture books like Tadau and or Frank Lloyd Wright. And we are proud to be the publisher of the falling water. Instead of house in my Frank Lloyd Wright art books like Basquia or Basque. And you will see that no one is similar to the other. We are super detail oriented I would say. And we like to invent every book from the scratch. So once for your question, what that's is what makes Ritzoli and Ritzoli 100%. I was specialized in house production teams. We are directors editorial classmen and selected printers. And you can imagine that we print mainly in Italy because this is our origin. And so oversee every step of a cutting process from paper selection over materials, book binding, technique and packaging. Ritzoli are meticulously crafted to become collectible object art as I told before. We have everything in house. So we do the color proof in house. We do editorial work in house. And so that's I mean, it's like to be in the past because never really changed. Nothing really changed. This dedication to quality is reflected in our position as the Princeton leader in interior design publication in the USA. The most renewed designer seek to publish with us. But we maintain our high standards, accepting only those who meet our criteria for value and reputation. And once again, I gave you the answer value and reputation is our parliament. And you took over as president and CEO of Resoli in 2023 after spending 30 years at Resoli's parent company, Monde Dori Group, which acquired Resoli in 2018. What have been some of your top priorities when you took over the reins of the company? Well, my main goal has been to build on Ritzoli, my amazing legacy. Why also growing the business because when you're you moved to a new company, you all been asked to to please grow the company. That's your that's your thought. And so you have to respect the legacy, but you have to grow the business anyway. That means expanding globally, finding with partners and sticking to our commitment to quality, over quantity. Obviously, we are focusing on digital marketing and we are trying to focus in the luxury and design markets because are the best performing markets for us. But we cannot stop there. We need to look at international acquisition to expand expand Monde Dori's reach behind Italy. Our recent acquisition of Chelsea Green Publishing in Vermont, Chelsea Green is the leading publisher of books on the politics and practice of sustainable living. And we thought that was a smart idea to go after this new target also for our reader. And the establishment of Ritzoli Universe in London, the summer that housed the building with a long local editorial and sales team managed by Stephen King, not the famous author, but our managing director for managing director of Art de Grande UK exemplify our strategy to grow internationally. Yeah, as I told you at the beginning, it's a busy time and we've all made other roles in the world, because I'm still managing director and publisher in many Italian imprint of one that already grew up, including I wanted to mention Sparling and Cooper, but it's one of the leading publisher in fiction books and just to tell you, among our authors, we have Rebecca Yaros and Colin Hoover, the Queen of Romans, Stephen King and Michael Connell, just to name a few. So it's a very tricky business also in Italy, but so I'm constantly on the move between Milan and New York and Vermont London. You name it. But at the end of the day, it's all about maintaining and growing Britsolier reputation. And I'm lucky to have Charles Mayas by my side. He's publishing the Italian director of War It's Sully Imprint. He's the one that makes book happen and the Ritzoli Beaver Brand it is, a publishing legend, a magic world of the luxury books. You know, bookstores have seen a revival in recent years, just when you thought that Amazon had finished off brick and mortar stores. Booksellers are making a comeback. Hundreds of new bookstores have opened up in the last few years. Now Barnes and Noble is aggressively rolling out stores nationwide. It reminds me of what's going on with luxury retail, actually. You know, we're seeing leading luxury brands focusing on actively increasing their retail footprint helped by consumer desire for in-store experience. There's simply no emotional connection or compelling comparison to seeing and holding the material up close and personal. What do you think is driving people back to bookstores? Yeah, that's true. That's true. It's true all over the world, I would say. On Sinitale we are experiencing the same revival for a physical bookstore. I think that people are coming back to bookstore because they offer something special, as you mentioned before, a sense of community, the joy of discovery. And the real inspiration at the end. In today's digital world, there's just something irreplaceable about browsing shelves and finding the perfect book. And so this, I think, is the main reason for a bookstore revival. And I have to tell you that year after year, our bookstore is growing its business. And mainly after a pandemic, we are really growing very, very fast. Do you see expanding your physical footprint outside of New York City? So we might expand beyond New York, but only if we find a location that matches our brand and caters to people who love beautiful, I quality books. And you have to remind that driving a bookstore is not an easy business. The margin are really, really low. And so you have always to be very careful when you open a new bookstore. And we are very proud of our bookstores. One one Ritzoli bookstore in Milano, the famous Ritzoli Galleria, is an historical bookstore. We have a very solid library at Cravan in Paris, and San Germain de Pre. And we just open it, the pop-up store on the fifth avenue, in the new Louis Vuitton flagship store. And then we have many branded space in prestigious bookstore worldwide. So I mean, our presence is quite spread and visible worldwide. We are also building community in our ways, in other ways, I would say. For instance, to celebrate our recent 60th anniversary, we developed a new line of Ritzoli bookstore merchandise collection. And we did that with stylish and roomy tote bags, designed by Leonardo Sonnerly. Leonardo Sonner is a very famous designer in Italy. He won the Compasodor of the most prestigious Italian prize for design. And he designed for us wide collection of merchandise, including pencil, magnet and marks. So this is another activity we do to try to create a reason why I come in the bookstore and be with us physically. Another big trend that plays right into Ritzoli's wheelhouse is coffee table books have taken on this cult status. The regular features of the stylish interiors posted on Instagram and TikTok and are often seen in magazines like architectural digest appearing on chairs and desks and other services across the home. Celebrity bookshelf voyeurism is a thing. This is taking place in an era when Kindle apps and audio books have made it easier than ever to go book free altogether. Do you believe people are more attuned than ever to the spaces we live and work in or is it something else? Very interesting question. I would tell you that we saw a huge demand during the pandemic. People used to stay at home and so they start buying books to be displayed and to be for a very house. People were spending so much time at home and coffee table books became a way to express the personality and style. And this probably led to a significant surge in demand for our titles, especially those focusing on interior design and fashion. The very beginning our book has been more than just decoration. I would like to call them conversation starters. They show what your values are. When I visit friends home in the most chic location. I often find our books in a prominent place. Not just on the bookshelves spread around the house. Signalling the owner's cultural and aesthetic sensibility. This connection to personal identity is likely why. I'm posing the culture as fair. Particularly close to its only publication. That's why we constantly strive to make our book to make our books as fascinating and desirable as possible. We are a relevant reputation, creativity, production quality and a unique storytelling perspective. I always repeat, we are not just a luxury brand. We are part of the culture of luxury, which we aim to represent authentically. We are a selling monographs, captures the story of the cult Italian clothing label, Stone Island. It's a massive 300 pound home packed with massive photographs and essays documenting four decades of the brand's decades long industry dominance. Resolid first released in 2020 and you just released an updated edition with some new content. It's authored by fashion journalists and Stone Island head Carlo Revedi. It's a massive project like that come together with Stone Island. It's part of our life, I would say. To answer better, I mean, I think that projects like the Stone Island who come from a place of sharp values and collaborative spirit. Stone Island, as you did, is said, is all about innovation. When we met his founder, Carlo Revedi, we decided to try to do something that could become a relevant book in the market. We call to collaborate famous journalists like Angela Flacabento and we try to tell. the same approach we used to create the other books, but was done as usual with rigor and clarity. The impact of an Italian brand like Ston Island has had on subculture and out it filtered down to music and pop culture in general was fascinating as and deserved serious inquiry also on a book perspective, I think. It took a few years to develop such a project, but we wanted to make sure every detail was perfect and reflected the brand spirit. So how do you go about picking a subject or topic for a book or a collection? I know you've probably been asked this question before I'm very curious how how, how resolute goes around about doing that. You know, we get tons of proposals, but we are picking. We have to think about whether a book, it's Ritzoli's reputation and who are readers for this book. We only choose a project that raised the bar and we'll reason it with our audience. It usually takes us two or 24 months from the idea to the publication. It's a long, long trip. If a project has commercial potential, we'll pass it if it doesn't meet our quality standards. We'll tell you many, many times Ritzoli's reputation is everything. Leading companies and institutions like Dior, Gabbana, Louis Vuitton, Ralph Lauren, Ulgari Cartier and Brightling just to name a few. Six to collaborate with us because we offer a combination of original and I would say bespoke editorial expertise and the prestige and visibility associated with Ritzoli brand. Ritzoli is also a big opportunity to work with such a brand because we learn a lot from them about their board, their products, their strategy. And we try, as I told you, bring them value and expertise and reputation. And Ritzoli has also become this cultural epicenter, regularly hosting these big events. You partnered with Mattel to publish the Barbie, the World Tour coffee table book. And you had a big bookstore event to celebrate it. Hundreds of these diehard Barbie fans showed up Ritzoli in Manhattan. I was reading in the New York Times that the event featured a panel discussion. Pink velvet cupcakes and rosé being served. Of course, a lot of fans and pink outfits. There's only have an approach to holding major events like this one or author signings, literary discussions and art exhibitions. Yeah, events are a big part of what makes Soli a cultural destination. Nowadays, it's very important to find your friends opportunity to come and visit the bookstore. But we want to create experiences that capture the spirit of the book or the brand. Like with the Barbie event. It was so nice. We went all out with the same drinks, fun panel of discussion, wind of display, and featuring some of the Margot Robbie actual outfit from the movie. It was such a blast. And it got a ton of attention. New York Times included, I would say. Not easy. And each event we do is tailored to the audience. So it's always a unique experience. Our 60 anniversary celebration conceived by a manager by our bookstore director, Livia Senech Matullia, included a diverse program of event, spanning various artistic disciplines. I like it. What has been most important for us, the interplay between the world and image that has always defined it with Soli. We have hosted the many important personalities in the music side, Pettism, Eaten, Chris Stein in for the literal tour side. I would talk about the Pulitzer Prize, June Palahiri and Michael Kanigam. From the word of patience celebrity, I would mention Diane from Fustenberg, Jessica Lange. Or for food, Marta Stewart. So many relevant people. And I could go on and on. But these gave to the bookstore special life. Because our bookstore is really a dynamic cultural center. We host the book launch, but also live jets, concerts. We host the wine tastings and creative workshops. I'm so proud of both this work and I'm proud of being a manager of Soli bookstore too. And we also publishes books that pay tribute to our honor, prestigious brands. For example, Dolce and Gabbana from the heart to the hands. It's one title and Salvador Ferragamo, 1898 in 1960 is another. You have many others. Can you work with these brands to ensure that you're telling the story with accuracy? Yes, we do offer specializing services for many of these brands. We can create custom books or books for the trademark. And it's a chance for us to use our skills to tell someone unique story. Let me mention a recent book we published with Zena. Born in Oaz Zena. The story of her manager, Zena, is told through a collection of rival and contemporary images. The painting, that community and battle landscape that Hermione Gildo Zena created in Oaz Zena. This book is full of multiple objects and design. We have interactive removable elements, cultural popups and material. This book is a special book. We presented this book during Milano Design Week in 2024. We've been in immersive exhibition at the Tenya headquarters. We've transformed the book's stage into an actual space to explore. This book, particularly, is not done for the trademark. It's just distributed by Zena and Ritzoli in spatial events, like temporary drop-off in selected bookstore or actually meeting with the top clients. For many other books we do the brands, we do the normal trade edition and we distribute them all over the world as I told before. Ritzoli does produce books that are not meant for the public marketplace. Are you ever approached to publish titles on things like private homes or private travel diaries or private collections? Yes, we do also these kinds of jobs. In spatial with personal collection or commercial, I would say, commemorative volumes is not our main job, I would say. But it happened to publish books like that and we bring our experience. It's always nice to enter in different world and to learn something new. I'm driven by my curiosity and so this brings me everywhere I can find the story to tell everyone else. Back in 2017, Ritzoli did its first collaboration with an appara label. It was with Japanese retailer Beams, recreating capsule collection of t-shirts, caps, tote bags with Ritzoli in New York, branding to celebrate the launch of Beams' new book. Are collaborations like this partnering with brands on exclusive products in Ritzoli's strategy playbook? Yes, as I told before, collaboration with brands is our DNA. From the very beginning, we started collaborating with brands. At the beginning, we brought the Italian and the fashion and design to the US world. But nowadays, we collaborate with brands everywhere in the world, from Italy to US to Northern Europe to Far East and why not to Japan. We do not force this kind of collaboration. They have to happen organically, I would say. And mainly when we talk about some capsule collection, as we did with beams in Japan, that collaboration came after our stronger reputation was built with many fashion books about Japanese brand, like Passing Gap, remember Sakai, Supreme, Undercover, Harat and the last one is Nigo. And the Japanese, you know, are really trans-setter. If the collaboration feels natural, we are all for it, because it's always a good experience to follow. And for us, it's a way to reach new people, state fresh. And as we did with another capsule collection, with Jeff Staple, on a limited edition box set for his book, Not a Just Niggard. So it's February 2025, just looking, you know, just finished up the holiday season. How are sales for Resoli? I like to answer to this question. And I knew you would, I saved the best for close to last. Because the holidays were fantastic. Fishing, art and interior design books were flying off the shelves. Books are bags, totally bags. Our Barbie book was a huge, but we sold over 100,000 copies worldwide, and I just buy bunny Williams and Jill Schaefer, also performer exceptionally well. Once again, I can rely on a dream team, lead by Jennifer Pearson, president of Global Sales Market Publicity and Operation, of Ori Thali Imbrin. She is with us since more than 20 years, and she knows the market has no one. Yeah, what's exciting? Yeah, what do you, what do you excited about for 2025? What new releases can you talk about? It's always nice to anticipate some new type of, for coming, the upcoming title, because, you know, we always work in the future, and we have a book published, so we are nowadays, we'll be in the book that will be published in the future map, but we got some amazing titles coming up. The most important will be the big architectural digest interior book, hovering in the MEASLE era. We are working to any Linux-illustrated memoir, to the classic Shatou Marmon Hollywood Handbook, just a week ago. And this is a very interesting book, after many years, a republished new version with new contents, a place where everyone has been in Hollywood award. And then we have them going collaboration with your Dolce Gambana, Ralph Lauren, for sure, Wulgary and Louis Vuitton. Going to begin it very, very exciting year, I think. Well, Stefano, my final question is the Luxury Item question, which I ask all my guests. So if you were stranded on a deserted island, and you could only have one single luxury item with you, what would that luxury item be? It can't be any form of air-awarded transportation to get you off that island, or anything that requires mobile service. So you can call some of your friends to get you off that island. It's just you on this lonely island with lots of sand and palm trees, and miles and miles and miles of ocean. What would that one single luxury item you would like to have with you? That's a very tough one. But I had the opportunity to listen to your podcast and so many of the answers that people gave to this question. And so I'd make my choice. And I'd like to share with you. I'll go with a beautiful illustration, a beautiful illustrated edition of the Diderot and Dallambert and Cyclopedia. That was published in 1751. It's a massive work. It's 35 volumes, 13 of which completely illustrated about arts, science, and everything related to human life. So it would keep me learning and entertaining for years, I think. Yeah. And so probably it would not reach my curiosity, but just one of my biggest passions. And I think that maybe could even help me figure out how to get off that island and reach my beloved family again. Stefano Peccatori, president and CEO of Resoli International. Thank you so much for joining me on the luxury item. Thank you Scott. It was a pleasure and I hope to see you soon. That's it for this episode of the luxury item podcast. Thank you so much for listening. If you found this useful and entertaining, I would be really grateful if you can share it with a friend or colleague. I would love it if you subscribe so you never miss an episode. And while you're there, be sure to rate and review us on Apple podcasts. It really helps other listeners find us. The luxury item podcast is a production of Silver Tone Consulting. I'm your host Scott Kerr. Until next time. [Music]