30 years of Dalle Piane Cashmere: goals and future challenges
For Dalle Piane Cashmere's birthday, we interviewed Leonardo Dondini, who has run the e-commerce side of the family business since 2003. Who better than Leonardo to tell us about the changes and the most important milestones of the company over the last 30 years?
Leonardo Dondini
We often hear about companies that are carried on generation after generation. Inheriting your parents' work can look like an obligation and an easy choice rather than one of heart and passion. What was it like for you? Would you take the same path again?
Working in the family business is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, there's the good fortune of having a career path already laid out; on the other, working side by side with your own family isn't always easy, because visions and backgrounds often don't line up. The challenge is finding a good balance between tradition and innovation. In our case, processes tied to the old tradition have been paired with new activities such as e-commerce, the most important of them all. The financial results show that we're on the right path.
If I could go back, I'd definitely make the same choice. Working for something that comes from far back, from my parents, from my grandfather, is an honour and a satisfaction. And then, I was born and still live in Prato, the realm of textiles, so even without this family I would most likely have worked in the same field.
Children dream of becoming astronauts, firefighters and police officers. You, on the other hand, have described yourself as ‘a child who dreamed of going to wool school’. Do you have a special story to share with us?
There are so many memories. The first that comes to mind goes back to when my dad would bring home little bags of wool tufts and I would play with them for hours. Those same tufts, once spun into yarn, were knitted into the sweaters.
Let's talk about the company today. What have been the most significant changes since you took over the e-commerce side, and which values, instead, have stayed constant over time?
Without a doubt, the values that have stayed constant across these thirty years in business are tradition, product quality and customer satisfaction. The way we make our sweaters hasn't changed; the difference is in the relationship with customers. With the internet we reach the end customer directly, and that lets us offer better prices and keep a relationship that, to this day, is a fundamental value.
The most significant changes are tied to the development of production technologies. For example, today the looms are networked, so, in simple terms, the pattern maker builds the garment in a program that the computer then sends to the loom, and the knitting begins. I want to be clear that machines will never replace the manual work of our artisans, which is essential throughout the making-up stage. Another big project we're working on is big data: we decided to gather the data from all our sales channels into a single database. In May of this year, for instance, we had 43 million cells, so by now it's more. All of this lets us better understand trends and what customers are asking for.
Let's move on to the products: which one is most in demand? And which one, in your view, sets you apart on the market?
The product we sell the most is the wrap. Both in winter and in summer. But the one that sets us apart the most is the poncho. It was the first to be a big success with immediate appeal, and in doing so it paved the way for all the other e-commerce products.
The most popular colours are the classics, like grey, black and beige. This year, following fashion, we'll add others such as purple and lilac, reaching a range of 18 colours available.
Before we wrap up, in honour of the company's 30th birthday, do you have anything to say to the long-standing and future customers reading this?
We hope the next thirty years are just as rewarding for us, for the people who work with us and above all for our customers, and that they're always happy with our products and our service.
