Andrea Panconesi is chief executive of Luisa Via Roma, an online luxury fashion destination and store in the heart of Florence, Italy. The Florentine store is famous for a razor-sharp edit and market-leading merchandising. The store’s online website receives four million hits a month and stocks 600 designers and emerging talents.
Panconesi believes that “it is our duty and our most important mission to choose what we consider to be the best designers at the moment, both new talent and established designers, and to select out of their collections what we believe are the best pieces, the most important pieces.”
He has worked hard to nurture links between the virtual and physical of Luisa Via Roma, founding Firenze4Ever, the first-ever party organised for digital influencers. "We invite all the most influential bloggers from all over the world to come and join us here in Florence. We provide them with makeup artists, hairdressers, photographers and models so that they can shoot professional work, with the new collections, before everybody else."
In June of 2017, Panconesi announced a new project, LVR Editions, stating his desire to “create something engaging and exclusive that speaks directly to a contemporary audience.” LVR Editions is an ongoing series of exclusive collaborations between Luisa Via Roma, international brands and influential industry figures that promote co-branded limited edition products and co-branded content.
Panconesi’s success at Luisa Via Roma is partially credited to the stores’ strident independence. “We are not partisan; if we don’t like it, we don’t buy it and we don’t promote it. It is the selection that sets us apart; we make the best selection of each different collection.”
