When the Lavish Cut Back
Rome — With a world-weary sigh, Francesco Trapani slips off his $10,000 steel and white-gold Bulgari watch, revealing the band’s dull underside. Bulgari once polished it to a fine gleam to match the shiny exterior.
The change is a subtle one, but it captures the cost-consciousness that the first recession in luxury-goods sales in nearly 20 years has forced on companies like Bulgari, Burberry, Cartier, Montblanc and other top designers, a modification of their traditional focus on glamour and glitter.
The challenge is as delicate as polishing one of Bulgari’s hallmark gems. In Bulgari’s case, if Mr. Trapani, the company’s chief executive, cuts too deeply, he risks harming the brand’s image of opulence and exclusivity, carefully honed over decades and reinforced by stars like Nicole Kidman, Charlize Theron and Scarlett Johansson, wearing Bulgari on red carpets at Cannes or the Oscars.
“Instead of talking about stars and spending, you think about cutting costs,” Mr. Trapani said during an interview in his office overlooking the Tiber. “Luxury is not immune.”
Economizing does not come naturally to Mr. Trapani, 51. He is a skilled yachtsman whose wife is a princess from Liechtenstein. Until now, his claim to fame was transforming Bulgari from a handful of boutiques founded by his great-grandfather into a worldwide luxury powerhouse.
