Evening and welcome to the presentation of the first quarter 2026 revenues of the Maison Brunello Cucinelli. Speakers will be Brunello Cucinelli, Executive Chairman and Creative Director, Luca Lisandroni, CEO, Riccardo Stefanelli, CEO, Dario Pipitone, CFO, Moreno Ciarapica, Co-CFO Senior, and Pietro Arnaboldi, Investor Relations and Corporate Planning Director. Now, I would like to hand over to Brunello Cucinelli.
Good evening. Welcome back, as usual, journalists, analysts, investors and dear friends. This is the second call of the year, but it is actually the first to discuss 2026 on the occasion of the Q1 revenue figures. We believe it is a very important call because of the period we are living through. That is why we would define this call as extremely important.
All of us are present, 10 of us as usual, and the call will proceed as follows. I will read out the key figures. Luca will provide you with a careful global overview of the markets. I will resume sharing our forecast for 2026 in detail and also some visibility on 2027. Together with Riccardo, we will summarize the following, investments in artisanal production capacity, our elasticity, flexibility and reversibility that was already tested in 2020 during the pandemic, and also in 2021 when we resumed our business and activities following the pandemic. We will then focus on the new e-commerce platform built with artificial intelligence, in which we place great confidence, especially now, as was the case in 2020. Let me read out the figures.
Excellent results with growth of 14% at constant exchange rates and total revenue of EUR 369 million, plus 8.1% at current exchange rates. Outstanding performance of the retail channel up 20.1% at constant exchange rates and very positive contribution from the wholesale channel, up 4.3% at constant exchange rates. Very favorable trends across all geographies. Constant exchange rate growth of 20.3% in the Americas, 4.4% in Europe, 17.8% in Asia. Double-digit retail growth across all three continents. Order intake for the fall/winter 2026 men's and women's collections is of the highest quality, with very positive feedback from the trade press and also the wholesale clients. Excellent contribution from our new e-commerce site based on the artificial intelligence called Callimachus, which has already proven its ability to greatly increase client interaction through personalized custom-made experiences, and above all, it has attracted attention from major tech companies from the Silicon Valley.
The quarterly results with consistent growth in the first three months of the year, excellent sell-out of the spring/summer collection that are currently on the shelves. You should know that if your inventory is obsolete, that mirrors the goods you have in the stores. Also, the order intake for the fall/winter collections described by trade press and major global buyers as perhaps the most beautiful ever, while all of the above will allow us to look at the entire 2026 year with confidence. These highly positive elements, together with a strong and prestigious global brand image and positioning in the most exclusive luxury segment. They allow us to confirm expected growth of 10% at constant exchange rates for 2026. Strongly believing in our business model, we also anticipate revenue growth of around 10% for 2027 too. This is my comment.
The first quarter of 2026 ended with a 14% increase in revenues, a result we may confidently regard as excellent. On a global level, the brand's elevated image, positioned within the most exclusive tier of luxury, it remains this image very robust, and we believe it is enjoying the finest moment in our history. The consistency and identity of our style, our visual merchandising and the lifestyle we so ardently seek to express, they appear to us both vigorous and dynamic, while their guiding principles remain steadfast over time. Great creativity, contemporary products, craftsmanship, manual skills and exclusivity. That's important. We are confident that the prestigious accolades received in 2025 for our stylistic identity, together with the release of the movie throughout 2026, will continue to fuel interest, curiosity, and allure around our Maison.
At this particular juncture for humanity, we have drawn upon what we learned back in 2020 during the pandemic, and subsequently put into practice, namely, the importance of clarity in the fundamental principles of our enterprise, the necessity for all our decisions to be reversible, elastic, and flexible, culturally as well, on an almost daily basis. Finally, the need for great caution and patience without thereby relinquishing our rightful ambition. This is what we asked of all our colleagues during the customary quarterly internal assembly that we held on March 2nd.
We want to put into practice the teaching of Thomas More, who said, "Oh, my God, help me accept what I cannot change and help me change what I can." In light of the above, as well as of the strong appreciation garnered by the fall/winter 2026 collections described by the international trade press and leading global buyers as the most beautiful in our history, we look to the current year with particular confidence, anticipating revenue growth of around 10% with a similar outlook for 2027. Now, Luca, you can now give us a global overview.
Good evening, Brunello, and good evening, everybody. I would start commenting our results for this quarter. They are particularly strong, slightly exceeding our expectations, and showing further acceleration compared with the second half of 2025, which we had already regarded as excellent.
The 20% growth in the retail channel represents the most significant element of these results, and I would begin my review precisely here. We view this growth to be meaningful and particularly robust for a number of reasons. First, once again, strong geographical balance. As Brunello mentioned, we are growing double-digit in the retail across all three continents. The second element is an excellent balance between organic and non-organic growth. The overall performance of existing stores remains very healthy and consistent, confirming our belief that we have already mentioned on several occasions, that there is still considerable potential within these locations thanks to the youth and freshness of our network. At the same time, new openings and expansions we have delivered, while they have translated into the expected contribution, enabling us to continuously enhance the quality of our network while safeguarding the evolution of our profit and loss account.
We have identified growth opportunities in a non-dilutive manner. When we take a look at the contribution of non-organic growth in the first quarter, as you might remember, there is a marginal contribution offered by the three openings at the start of the year, Boca Raton, one in China, in Naples. They are middle-sized, and they are in premier locations. The greatest contribution comes from the 2025 openings. That, as you might remember, were all concentrated in the second half of the year. The third remark I'd like to make is the virtuous balance between volume and value growth. Sales volumes are increasing in step with the growth in the number of end customers, while the average selling price is also rising, supported by a highly positive sales mix.
For us, this is a very encouraging sign that talks about the quality of our creative offering and the positioning of the brand. This has been the case for a few years, Brunello comments. Fourth, perfect gender balance. In this quarter, too, revenues shows gender parity, 50% men and 50% women. We consider this a very distinctive feature of our brand. The last remark regards the time dimension. We are extending our sequence of double-digit retail growth quarters, and this shows consistency of our performance and continuity of our performance even across different market environments. Within the quarter, it is worth noting that March remained in line with the growth of the previous two months, even after the outbreak of the war.
Only the Middle East showed some impact, but this was offset during the month by the over-performance of other regions, and also the first two months in the same region, in the Middle East. The Middle East accounts for approximately 5% of our revenues, both by geography and by customer nationality. The region shows a good balance between retail and wholesale, with retail concentrated in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, and the rest is managed through wholesale agreements. What is even more important is that the Middle East contributes positively to growth in the first quarter, thanks to the excellent start in the first two months of the year. In March, however
Store traffic in the area fell by more than 50%. Although it is important to highlight that all stores remain open and fully operational. We confirmed their salaries fully. Let us now turn to wholesale. There is a slight growth at constant exchange rates there, very good, which we consider very positive and fully in line with our expectations for the channel for the full year. Spring/summer deliveries were once again perfectly on time and complete, enabling our multi-brand clients to begin the season with full assortments and to achieve very encouraging sell-out results. As you know, as we said last time, we have asked all our multi-brand partners to pay increasing attention to their own line conduct while leaving them free to receive and order quantities consistent with this discipline. In talking about wholesale, it is always useful to distinguish between specialty stores and department stores.
Specialty stores represent one of the strongest pillars of our business in our distribution and revenues, and they are in excellent health, highly attentive to research, very important for the whole industry, and they are busy trying to understand this particularly favorable moment in style. Yes, it's 30% wholesale and 70% retail, Brunello points out. In times of international tension, the role of specialty stores becomes even more significant, thanks to their close physical proximity to customers and the strong relationship of trust they maintain. Department stores. Let's look at Saks, Neiman Marcus, and Bergdorf Goodman. As we said, we've been back to full operations since the end of January, and this is shown by our results. For our brand, sales to end customers in the first quarter are higher than in the same period last year in 2025.
This is true both for concessions and for wholesale corners, and both for menswear and womenswear. Payments have been extremely punctual. Let us now look at geographies. As you've seen, the Americas and China, both in excellent health, are driving overall growth. These two markets increasingly appear as systems that are somewhat insulated from the rest of the world. They're strong because of the size of domestic demand. On the other side, they're shielded by physical distance from the Middle Eastern war. They are also protected by a relatively moderate media coverage of the Middle Eastern conflict. From a trend perspective, China and the Americas are experiencing the same phase of demand elevation. Actually, the average selling price in these regions is rising more rapidly than in other parts of the world, reflecting a strong desire for uniqueness and special garments.
In China, for us, sales are concentrated exclusively in major cities, with Hong Kong once again becoming a very strong hub of attraction. In the Americas, our sales performance is also excellent across all major cities. We are achieving double-digit growth in New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Dallas, and the main resort locations such as Aspen, while overall growth is strongly supported by the broader diffusion of demand across the whole national territory, which has revealed new opportunities even beyond major cities and leading resorts. Europe. Results in Europe are in line with our expectations. We anticipated wholesale to be broadly in line with last year, and we're very pleased with retail growth of 10%. The non-comparable, in fact, it is now much more limited in Europe versus other regions.
We note the excellent start of the new store in Rue Saint-Honoré in Paris, which we opened last November. The performance of comparable stores across the various European markets in this first quarter is therefore very solid. We can conclude that globally, the performance of the physical business is excellent, as is the performance of the digital channel. Our online boutique is growing rapidly this first quarter, strengthened by the new features that Brunello mentioned, and we are going to talk about that later too. They are based on our Callimachus's artificial intelligence, and this has immediately led to significantly longer session times, which means greater opportunities for sales and communication, as well as, in our view, a more elevated and distinctive image.
Also, increasingly satisfactory and productive is our partnership with LuxExperience and all its platforms, Mytheresa, Net-a-Porter, and SSENSE, where achieving double-digit sales growth alongside higher sell-out percentages and these excellent results show very close collaboration and strong discipline. We firmly believe that 2027 is a very successful year for the digital channel. We actually see that customers are becoming more and more confident with digital channels, and we're talking about true luxury customers. The digital experience is very agile and nimble by its very nature, which is a big advantage in this moment in time. A detailed analysis by geography, channel, and growth driver provides consistent, positive, and mutually reinforcing evidence of a business in excellent health, supported by the clear stylistic identity, strong brand appeal, product strength, clarity of positioning, and rigor in the strategic development we are pursuing.
When moving from actual data to forecasts, then necessarily we must take into account the contextual analysis. We see this as three concentric circles, our fashion house within our sector, within our industry, and in the global market. If we look at this shape, so we feel the company's in very good shape. We have resources, initiatives, projects, and commercial investments in place to support the expected sales for the upcoming periods. We also believe the industry is doing well, certainly better than last year. We have closed fashion weeks with a very positive atmosphere. We felt a very good environment with a strong perception of new ideas, and this is true for both Milan and Paris. We noticed renewed energy and a great focus on product. In our view, this will prove decisive in the months ahead.
However, global markets are factoring in the current high level of international tension, outlining a more challenging environment than we initially expected. We are no strangers to uncertainty, and we firmly believe more and more that in uncertain times, it becomes even more important to maintain clarity of purpose while exercising daily flexibility and execution without giving in to or giving up our ambitions. As we always do in such sensitive, delicate moments, we have gathered, and we can confirm today our guidance of expected revenue growth of around 10% for 2026 and 2027, maintaining both a realistic and confident attitude. Today, we're experiencing the welcome sense of very natural, entirely unforced growth, which seems to broaden our horizon and make the opportunities ahead even clearer and more tangible. I'll stop here. Of course, if you have questions, we'll be happy to go deeper into this. Very good.
This is Brunello speaking. Following Luca's comments, the forecast for 2026 is revenue growth around 10%, EBIT slightly improving, investments around 6% because you know that industrial investments have been completed, net financial position improving, and all of this with healthy and excellent visibility. We expect the same to be true for 2027. We would like to virtually change nothing, follow the same strategies as in 2026. Why are we providing estimates and sharing them with you? This is a typical problem we first encountered in 2020. We do share our estimates with you at very unusual moments. It would be much more cautious not to do so. Many of you analysts told us we were bold in doing so back in 2022. First of all, it's part of our culture, company culture.
Also we have close connections with the local institutions and authorities, like the Mayor of the provincial highs and so on. Everybody's asking us how are things going, and it's hard for us to say we cannot answer because we are a public company. Just like we did in 2020, we're trying to give you our idea, and then if changes occur, we'll update you immediately. Internally, we work with projects every day, and this is what we want to convey to you. We are ready to adjust them on a daily basis according to events in case it's necessary. Let's go on with some three-year considerations. We consider 2026, 2027, and 2028 as an overall period which belongs to the 2024-2028 plan, which we defined as the triennium of healthy harvest.
Because in 2024 and 2025, we have completed our investment in our production facilities, which we are confident will guarantee high-quality production for the next 10-15 years. Now this will be the triennium of the harvest. 2028 will mark the 50th birthday of our company, and we want to get there with peace of mind. Our facilities allow us to have flexibility, speed, elasticity, reversibility, which is really, really important, and we will discuss it further with Riccardo. Why don't we change our estimates? Well, first of all, Q1 performance reflects the value of the Spring-Summer collection, which was just as particularly beautiful and creative last September. We are increasingly looking for special, beautiful, wearable, unique garments with great creativity and exclusivity. This is certainly something we notice for both men and women.
For men, it's more used and acceptable to wear the same things two or three seasons in a row, whereas women tend to change more frequently. My second comment is that the Fall-Winter 2026 collection entering stores in July, we received extremely favorable feedback during recent women's fashion weeks, both in Milan and Paris. They were rated as excellent by the international press and by the clients who said they are maybe the most beautiful ever. As you know, multi-brand clients are the players that are out there and quickly understand the state of health of each brand because they actually see hundreds of collections every season before everybody else does. This gives us strength. Something else that Luca hinted to is that during the latest February/March fashion shows, we actually felt completely fresh energy, and then the war broke, and this is a different story.
both in Paris and Milan, there was a lot of energy around the brand, around the luxury industry. We had been waiting for that for perhaps two years. this new energy is something we fully breathe when talking to the press. The press is definitely able to anticipate the times we're going through. Now, fourth point, in our stores, and this is really atmosphere, it is really important, the atmosphere blends home and shop, which is what we wanted. We have 10 Casa Cucinelli, and we do events everywhere. even in other stores, we have little buys. We actually have very nice associates. They're not insisting. They have a lot of taste. They have beautiful lifestyles.
As we speak, we consider our boutiques to be very contemporary and beautiful, just like our showrooms, because the showrooms where we present collections, well, if they look old, they have a bad impact on collections, too. We want the Casa Cucinelli to be our ambassadors. The last one, beautiful one, will open in Shanghai, and we will have these family-like events with maybe 100 to 120 guests. This year is also going to be very important for the brand. Next week, we are going to travel to New York to present the movie. We'll start in New York, and then we'll travel around Europe and Asia, and we'll complete this trip in the Middle East in December, hopefully. These are the main reasons why we confirm our estimates, even though there's a war, a painful and quite unexpected one.
It's difficult to accept it for our modern times. For me, I'm a lover of history. We know that war is a part of our story all the time. In summary, we believe the brand is experiencing a stronger, positive momentum globally for many reasons, including design, identity and creativity, craftsmanship, image, sustainability, the ways and places of work, and the value of Solomeo. These are very important tenets for us. Above all, there's a lot of research behind our products and great exclusivity, even online. We discuss it all the time. We believe that also in communication, we actually need to be very exclusive on the communication front as well. Our clients are 450,000-500 people globally, so they're not so many in terms of amount. We may conclude saying that today, the brand is pretty cool. We can actually say it ourselves.
Brands may be either very cool or not cool at all. Riccardo, please give us an idea of elasticity and flexibility and stuff. Thank you.
Good evening, everyone. I would like to share with you, as I usually do, some reflections on our production structure, which we believe is one of the most distinctive and solid elements of our fashion house. As you know, alongside our factory in Solomeo, which has doubled in size over the past two years, in also 2025, and besides, alongside our high-quality tailoring workshops dedicated to men's and women's outerwear in Carrara, Gubbio, and Penne, you know already. Well, besides, alongside all that, we can rely on a supply chain made up of 400 small artisan enterprises with which we maintain a direct, never intermediated relationship. This does not mean that we want to pass any judgment on the platforms and all those who use them. This is our culture.
By the way, in our region, Umbria, we have 70% of these small workshops, and the others are located in Marche, Tuscany, and Veneto. Currently they have 8,700 people, more than 8,400 in 2025, and the average age, is what we like, is that the owners are 52, and the employees on average are 44 years old. The generation handover has already happened. As we often say, it is a very simple, straightforward model. This craftsmanship requires hands. If we want to maintain this top-notch quality, we need to understand which hands will probably work here in the future. We believe that in this day and age, nurturing this manual skill culture is one of the most contemporary approach that our casa di moda might adopt. If there is a distinctive element of our production chain is flexibility.
As Brunello Cucinelli was saying, our stress test was in 2020 and the following years. In 2020 in particular, we found ourselves working in the context of great uncertainty. The same month in March, where the traditional seasonal planning became, in effect, weekly planning and actually daily planning. I clearly remember how week after week, we adjusted production batches, we transferred skills from one contractor to another, and at times we even slowed production, focusing more on research and creativity. Then we resumed it, and then we also changed our holidays. Back then, we had two very clear objectives. On the one hand, to ensure continuity of work for our artisans, and on the other hand, we had to protect the company at the time when market visibility was extremely limited. What we found particularly interesting is what happened immediately afterwards in the following two years.
Well, we experienced the opposite situation, the market demand exceeding our expectations and which we had to meet with great speed thanks to our artisanal subcontractors. Even in that case, our supply chain demonstrated the very same capability, but in the opposite sense, to adapt, react, restart, and return to growth while maintaining consistently the very same quality. Once again, that we believe that between 2020 to 2023, we underwent a true structural test, a stress test, and another important element that we do not mention very often is one of the bottlenecks of all the supply chains are raw materials. You see, raw materials, in this regard, we believe we are pretty robust and solid thanks to two things.
First things first is our relationship with strategic partners such as Cariaggi, our main cashmere supplier, in which we are shareholders alongside Chanel, with whom we also plan inventory levels. Here, of course, we are speaking of raw materials for periods of 12-14 months in advance. The second element is our relationship with the most important Italian suppliers of raw materials, with whom over the years we have built the same type of relationship with our contractors, direct, specialized across different product categories, stable, based on trust, but also on the same culture, productivity culture. With them, we do not just research new materials or sell easy proposal, but we also plan purchases well in advance. I'd like to sum up by saying that we have a wide-ranging network that is very cohesive, at the same time, built on people in direct relationship.
We have a great capacity for adaptation, so flexibility, elasticity, demonstrating the most complex moments, and a complete supply chain, which includes raw materials as well as manufacturing. We are tackling this moment with confidence. Now a couple of minutes on e-commerce and then discussion. I believe that e-commerce is a great tool for luxury, especially for brand image. Before moving on, Michael Kliger, the CEO of Mytheresa, now LuxExperience, well, perhaps the very best luxury multibrand online, he said something very interesting. "E-commerce has ceased to be a place of convenience, of good price, becoming a place of service, novelty, and experience. I see new interest because it is the most flexible commercial tool that exists." I really have found many interesting things here. About our e-commerce, we worked on Callimachus, and many contacted us to pay their congratulations.
We enjoy a great relationship with the Silicon Valley people. Someone from Silicon Valley actually saw in this new e-commerce a great invention that might indicate a new path in designing and realizing websites in this as well as in other sectors. I'd like to now share with you a comment by Somesh Dash, partner at IVP, one of the major investments in Anthropic, who said the following, and this is about it: "This is exactly the innovation needed to renew how websites are designed and function. It is a beautiful idea that could point everyone to new ways of making digital sites and experiences more engaging and therefore more successful." We like this very much. This new e-commerce is an important resource for our online dialogue with customers.
We believe that new creative digital approaches, well, hopefully a bit unconventional, while they can attract clients' attention, they can encourage them to spend more time on our websites discovering collections in an engaging way. As Luca was saying before, early numbers are significantly higher than traditional e-commerce, indicating strong visitor interest in interacting with this new online experience. Visitors tend to spend over 10 minutes on the website, about double than what was before. They view 20% more products on average, so it's a very significant figure there. Of course, this is a novelty, so it's very appealing. We are present in the U.S., Italy, and, as of April 30th, all over the world. We'd like to say that there are two companies that are among the most important worldwide with whom we are discussing possible developments.
They have shown a tangible interest, so it is something really serious because it's a new kind of tool. As it happened both in 2020, it is a very special time for mankind. We do not really know where everything is going to, so we have to be hopeful. At the beginning of March, during the classic quarterly meeting with all connected, we spoke about the outbreak of the Gulf War. Moreno and I, we are the senior members, we reflected that every 6, 7 years, something happens worldwide. Let's start from 2001, the Twin Towers. Followed in 2008 by the banks crash, then 2015, the Greek debt, then 2020, the pandemic, 2026, Gulf War. As you can see, there's a pattern there every 5, 6 years. Luckily enough, this happens to us at a very favorable stage situation for our brand.
We believe that it could be slightly less difficult for us. We must be ready to change plans quickly, even daily. What we said, we decided to follow the teachings of Thomas More. Oh my God, help me accept what we cannot change, help me change what we can change. We are retracing the early 2020 path during the pandemic. We held this board meeting where we spoke about this. We want to talk and focus on business only, and we don't want to meet anybody else who wants to offer other different proposals. We want to focus on our business. At the same time, since that we have more time because we meet less people, not directly linked to business, we must be more creative, innovative, kind, open to listening, extremely attentive to every single detail because this can make the difference.
If the difference amounts to 2%, 3%, you might be able to win over a customer, a loyal one. This is the way we are working nowadays. Please do not think that we underestimate it and that we are taking it lightheartedly, but we really wanted to focus on how we are approaching the situation. Now let's open to Q&A. Thank you very much.
The first question by Andrea Randone, Intermonte.
Good evening. Thank you for your confident updates. I have three questions for you. The first one, in your press release too, you mentioned a significant number of new clients in America. Can you perhaps give us a bit more color on your client base? We know it's very loyal, but if you can tell us how you see an expansion of these numbers. Second question on store openings in the retail network. Last year, it all happened in the second half of the year. This year, already in the first quarter, you started opening stores. What are your plans for the year in this regard? The last question I'd like to ask, important question, although a bit painstaking. It was 6% negative exchange rate in the first quarter.
You gave an indication of a guideline of -2% in the year. Is this guideline still valid?
Well, we are not wizards and we don't have a crystal ball. Andrea, I just wanted to point out that you are always the first one asking questions, so you win a cup, you win a prize here. As far as new customers are concerned, the brand is cool, so we have many young customers, both genders, who approach the brand. This is very important to us. It's very interesting that the average age is 35-45. As far as openings are concerned, Luca will tell you more.
Brunello still, until yesterday, we could've said that the dollar was very high, and if it had been yesterday, we could have said that we would close the year between 1%, 1.5% or 2%.
One thing is important, and that is the average. Since when we went public in 2012, it was 0.3. Perhaps in some years it just swings a little bit, but this is the average. We keep working, obviously, in the second half of the year. For the actual, that's exactly what we were expecting, Luca is commenting, because we knew that that was the exchange rate until March. As far as the network is concerned, no change in strategy. The timing of the openings is very much influenced by when we find prime locations. It could be the first quarter, second quarter, also depending on when these opportunities actually happen. We opened the three stores.
We envisage that in the second quarter, we will open an important store in Vancouver, in Oakridge, and then towards the end of the year, Abu Dhabi and Mexico City, between the end of this year and the start of next year. As usual, expansions play an important role this year. In the third quarter, we will expand the Geneva store, the Toronto store, and once again, straddling this year and the next one, the expansion of the Plaza 66 in Shanghai. Casa Cucinelli, as Brunello already mentioned, we are working actively on the location, and we believe that we can be ready for August. Yes, Brunello is saying, Paul, as for the openings, perhaps if we manage to find a great location, we might change the timing, but the strategy is always the same. The brand is experiencing going through a good patch.
The collection, the first thing that matters more than anything else. Luca, as we were saying in the past call, it's a great momentum for our brand.
Thank you both, goodbye.
Next question, by Chiara Battistini, J.P. Morgan.
Good evening. The first question, in the 20% direct consumer growth, can you give us the split between volumes and the mix? You spoke about this mix that supports growth. The second question linked to this strong performance in DTC. In terms of volumes and inventories, are you happy with the spring/summer inventory, or given the flexibility in your supply chain, does this help you meet the accelerated demand? My last question is if you can provide an update on the Saks situation, whether the business has resumed, how, and what are your expectations for this account for this year?
Luca?
I'll start from the last question, Saks.
Things are going according to plan. Revenues is on the rise. We expect a good year with all the three Saks Fifth Avenue, Bergdorf Goodman and Neiman Marcus. We planned important expansions within Bergdorf Goodman for both men's and women's. We consider the results of the first quarter to be very important because it really proves the loyalty of many American customers to these luxury brands. As I was saying, from the financial point of view, we have been paid on time. We believe that, as Brunello Cucinelli said, the Saks Fifth Avenue affair was only limited to 2025, and it had only to do with the financial situation. That is still an opportunity for our company. Retail performance. There's a great balance between volume-based and value-based growth. This is something we are always pleased about.
We like the fact that even if a price goes up, the goods are sold because there is this desire to pursue the creativity of the brand, and this is the nature of our brand. On the other hand, we like volumes to grow and also the number of customers, because this conveys the idea of a company that can look ahead to a bright future.
Inventory, Brunello speaking. Of course, as Luca was saying, customers are always seeking out very special things, and we're pleased with that. Inventory, we think it is modern, as we were saying before, because obsolete inventory mirrors obsolete stores. Production. As Riccardo mentioned
Everything is going well there, but we are ready should anything happen. We are ready to adjust, and it could happen overnight as it happened back in 2020. We have basically reapplied all the strategies that we had in 2020. You might say it was bigger in 2020. Well, we are prepared. We laid the foundation, prepared the ground. If it turns out better, and if the truce holds, then we will be fine. But we prepared for the worst.
Thank you.
The next question will be asked by Natasha Bonnet of Morgan Stanley. Please.
Thank you for taking my questions, and congratulations on the really great set of results. My first one would be, and this might be painstaking a little bit, I'm sorry, but any change in trends you've seen so far in April versus Q1, especially the exit rate from March? My second question would just be on the performance of the Middle East, if you could give us a bit more color. I think you said traffic in stores was down 50% in the month of March. Was that for the full month? And how were sales impacted at a similar level, and have you seen that evolve lately? And then my last question would be on Saks. I know you had previously mentioned you were planning on converting five Neiman Marcus stores from wholesale to concession. Is that still a plan for this year? Thank you.
Okay. Luca will start the answer, and then Riccardo will continue.
Okay, Luca speaking. For Saks, the plan is the same. Five locations have been identified for conversion during the year. For the Middle East, yes, we confirm that during the month of March, traffic decreased by 50%, 50. As we said, the Middle East accounts for 5% of our revenues, both in terms of geography and nationality. That means that the Middle East exports demand towards Europe as much as it receives demand from other countries. Riccardo, you can discuss trends.
Well, as far as style trends, people look for quality more and more. We do knitwear, which we call couture knitwear. It takes capable hands. We need our people to be prepared, to be ready. Everything works well. Schools and academies work well.
Something which is important is we have 25,000 people applying for jobs with us every year, and nearly 4,000 of these people want to be working in production. They know they have good salaries, good workplaces, but also they know we're looking for special things all the time. The fall/winter collection, just like the spring/summer collection, has got nothing basic at all. At this time, as we've seen in the fashion shows in February, March, the products are elegant, sophisticated, expensive, chic, very feminine. The winter fashion seems to be going among these trends all the time. For spring/summer, we have seen our friends at Chanel that presented very beautiful things, and their stores are full of people. It's a special and very beautiful time for fashion. There's a lot of innovation. People want very special products.
Not necessarily unwearable, that's for sure, but pretty special. Yeah, comfort, for instance, is one of the particular demands of the recent fashion trends. should we summarize one of the main new trends is exclusivity, uniqueness, quality, and elegance, and femininity. This would be the summary of the fashion trends we have seen in the last few weeks. This is it for fashion. You find it pretty, let's say, energetic for winter. We have beautiful collections for winter, and then hopefully the famous geopolitical situation will allow us to play it out at best. As far as the beginning of April, we have recorded no significant changes versus March. Oh yes, I was forgetting about April. April is following along the same trend as March.
The next question will be answered by Chris Huang of UBS. Please.
Hello. Hi, it's Chris from UBS. I have three, if I may. The first one on the wholesale order book. I think in the press release you mentioned that you only resume shipment with Saks from mid-January. Could you give us some visibility on what to expect for Q2 in the wholesale channel? Is something similar to Q1 a reasonable level? Secondly, I want to ask about the Americas DTC. I think you highlighted in the press release that the U.S. DTC channel continues to accelerate sequentially. Could you maybe talk about the underlying drivers here? Are you in any concern about any potential impact from perhaps a more muted stock market performance? If we look at the S&P 500, it's not actually doing too much here today. Just wanted to hear your thoughts on that.
Last but not least on the cluster performance, if I look at your regional retail trends, it is quite clear that the Chinese, Americans, European consumers are up in the double-digit territory. Are you able to talk a bit about the Koreans, the Japanese? I'm just interested to hear other trends in other Asian markets. Thank you.
Thank you, Chris. Let me answer that. Well, I'm going to New York next Monday, and we see it very positively as we speak. It's really successful in the United States. Luca, can you comment on Korea and the other Asian countries?
Yes, of course. We have gathered campaign orders. We love these orders in terms of both quantities and quality.
Well, for us, this is very important, says Brunello, because there's a clear indication that the level is getting higher and higher. Since these markets didn't buy much from, let's say mid-market brands, there's more space for real luxury today.
Well, Chris, thank you for your question on Japan and Korea. These are two markets that are doing very well. Both markets appreciate quality very much, Japan in particular. Something we absolutely like is that both these markets are structured to serve multi-brands, and department stores are very important there. The customer loyalty towards department stores is unprecedented and unparalleled. They have been loyal to department stores and multi-brand stores for centuries now. This shows how contemporary and how important well-executed multi-brands are. Korea is actually becoming more and more important in our world, too. Our people in the design offices are working on this more and more.
Brunello speaking now and saying, well, Chris, 10 years ago, we would never imagine to do research in Korea. We used to go to the U.K., Germany, Belgium, whereas our people do go out and do a lot of research in Japan and Korea in particular. Korea is an extremely creative country, so this is very interesting for us.
Luca speaking now. As you know, we do have wholesale and distribution agreements there that are really important for us. Last year we opened a beautiful store in Gangnam, which is conveying a fantastic image for our brand. When the owner invited me for lunch, however, the lunch was all Italian and garlic-free. Ms. Shinsuke invited me and my wife over, and she said, "We have prepared an Italian garlic-free lunch for you," which was fantastic, by the way. That means a lot of mutual respect between countries. Generally speaking, we're very positive towards everything, with the exception, of course, of the war.
James Grzinic from Jefferies, the floor is yours.
Yes. Good evening. Good evening, Brunello. Good evening, everybody. Congratulations for this fine quarter. I have two quick questions. We are happy to, Brunello, comment. Starting from the Middle East, what was the impact on the wholesale order in the region in the first quarter? Did you already see an impact or is it something that we will see later on? This great 20% retail in the first quarter, do we have to believe that this contribution might be around 7% and 8% given the timing for your openings in 2025 and the next?
Well, as for the first quarter, Luca Lisandroni speaking, there's great balance between comp and non-comp. As far as the order collection in the Middle East, it had completed indeed before the start of the war.
Brunello comments, nobody asked to cancel any orders. This is very positive. The only thing that we shared with them, we had some shipments of the summer in March that we diverted elsewhere, but it was just the summer sales. We can say that for the time being, we do not really feel it, this war. It is also incredible to acknowledge how everybody wishes to live normally. Stores were closed for one afternoon only, as a matter of fact, and we saw images of other stores opening. Brunello says, we speak with America on a daily basis. They say that actually the war ranks second or third in the news, whereas in Italy, the Italian television starts off immediately with the war, any kind of news edition. Now we have, was Ukraine, now Iran.
I have been at war, Brunello says, or part of the war for four years because indirectly I experience it. Whereas in America, this topic comes second or third when the news broadcast. Well, yes, they are further away geographically. Brunello says, personally, I feel at war, have been at war for four years since when Russia started with the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. I wish and hope that. Well, truth be told, I was really scared, frightened the other night when the president said those words, I spoke with my wife, and you might even think that something tragic might happen as it was the case for the Hiroshima bombing. Of course, you try not to think about that, but you have a seeping fear. We live in two worlds.
On the one hand, we have the business, and we focus on that, and on the other hand, we have tension and fear underlying it all. On top of that, I would say that humanity needs a new world order. Within this world order, it will take effort to reach this new world order. Well, hopefully we are close to our destination. Well, yes, but when you have a president making some statements, truth be told, we will wipe out the whole civilization. I'm in love with that culture. I have the bust of Cyrus the Great at home, who ruled Persia between 590 and 530. He was a man, he was enlightened for mankind. If I hear someone say that they will wipe out this civilization, I was really scared.
Thank God, right in the middle of the night, I received the message of the truce being signed. There is some sort of creeping concern because we are the first generation who have never experienced war directly.
Next question by Oriana Cardani, Intesa Sanpaolo.
Good evening. Thank you for your availability. My first question is about the performance of the European market in this first quarter. Were there some regions that outperformed or underperformed? What supported growth, local demand or also tourist demand still positive? The second question concerns retail in the U.S. in the first quarter. In the press release, you mentioned an acceleration compared to the previous quarter. Would it be possible to have a precise figure for this retail growth? Thank you.
Luca. As far as Europe is concerned, Oriana, growth is well scattered across geographies. As you know, the...
May I say that if you hear someone complaining a bit more, it's Germany, the German market. They are complaining, Ruggero says, but we can't say the results differ in German stores. The Germans are a bit like that. The Frankfurter Allgemeine mentioned this the other day, but there was an article about me on the Frankfurter Allgemeine that mentioned pessimism. Also tourism, Luca resumes, tourism is the high-end tourism, and therefore it is not at all impacted by the breaking out of the war. As to the American retail, we can confirm that we had already experienced a particularly favorable second half of the year last year, and this first half of the year. Well, it is a very responsive market, and it is welcoming our collection with lots of appreciation. Ruggero, I have to say that the market is faring well.
Of course, different brands, different stories. One thing is for sure, the market is in dire need for new and upcoming brands. This is the way it is. When you walk into your department store and you say, "What's new?" You want a new restaurant in Milan, a new restaurant in Rome. You want new brands. That's what customers ask for. As de La Bruyère said in the 17th century, one trend and one fashion will be replaced by another, and this one by another again. Today, we have Mr. Barilla, who is the member of our board, and he said, "Well, yeah, there's a difficulty." "Yes, but you sell pasta," we said to him. If we get the collections wrong, we will have 20% less. Whereas for pasta, everybody eats pasta, and we always have sale.
For the time being, we are all focused on good things, although the war really is there. Now I want to believe in this truce because I think that nobody wants the war, but it's something bigger than us. Why did you confirm estimates, you might ask? Because we believe in that, because we need to have something to work on, and also because we want to really be clear with all the local institutions, and we want everybody to know what we're doing. We don't want to hide behind the statement, we are listed, so we can't divulge anything.
Next question from Paola Carboni of Equita SIM.
Good evening. Good evening, everyone, and congratulations for this great trend in the first quarter. Thanks for taking my question. Two quick questions. Could you please go back to what you said about the latest weeks in March, where after the war broke, of course, there was an impact on the Middle East, but it was offset by other geographies that are performing.
Very well. Could you please give us more details about that and add some color to that? My second question is about Europe and wholesale in Europe in particular. I know you had asked your clients to be more, let's say, careful, on digital channels. I was asking myself what kind of response you've had from your customers here.
Yes, if I may, I must begin. In December, Paola, we wrote a letter to our clients and said, "Let's collaborate, but you have very beautiful physical stores, and be very careful with online stores because online may be a small percentage of sales, but they may be pretty dangerous for your image." Everybody understood and responded. I think the atmosphere here is really good, Paola. For the quarter, yes, we did have a slight decrease in that cluster.
Paola, we're talking about a few hundred thousand EUR. These are not earth-shattering figures, actually. Of course, the spring/summer collection was particularly good. We are harvesting very good results. In general, I think we are perceiving, we are feeling a very good atmosphere on the brand. The brand is healthy. It's in great shape. There were times when the brand was not as healthy as today, but these new collections, this new season before winter, we had a beautiful welcome. If we look at the new collections from other brands, including our beloved Chanel, with the new designers coming on, there's a lot of excitement and good atmosphere. Okay, Paola said, so there was a slight decrease, but nothing to worry. No, absolutely not. Also, the wholesale accounts are doing well. They have canceled no orders before winter.
No particular problem, but we don't want to take this too lightly, considering the times we're living through. We'll see what happens in Q2. Retail might be growing by 15%-16%, and people will say that retail will slow down. See what I mean, Paola? That might be the general impression. So far, the most important thing is they strike a peace agreement. We all need it. As a company, we're not really suffering the cost of energy too much, not in any proportion as to alter our P&L because 63% of our production is handmade. Of course, we're not energy intensive. We don't want to take things too lightly. Also because being too light at a moment like now, well, I've said it during several meetings, we're very focused, and we're very careful to anyone who suffers the consequences of war.
We are at war. That's the truth.
Thank you. For the other question?
Yes, Paola, you may imagine that the Middle East is 5% of our revenues and one month of war, while it was offset by a slight over-performance in our other geographies. We're actually talking about relatively small figures. We know that the European performance was in line with our expectations. America and Asia actually outperformed, and this has more than offset what we haven't obtained in the Middle East. Thank you.
There are no further questions so far. Very good. Thank you. All the best for everything, and hopefully we'll get together again in a few days' time and the war will be further away. Thank you very much.