"In the early days of e-commerce, he convinced Giorgio Armani, the king of Italian fashion, that selling clothes online would not damage his brand. He also built digital stores for other élite fashion houses, and created Yoox, a high-end online retailer. In 2018, Marchetti, then forty-nine, sold the company at a valuation of six billion dollars. But, instead of retiring, he sought out a new liege."
"On a Wednesday evening, Silas Chou, a Hong Kong-based textile and fashion tycoon, hosted a book party in his eighty-second-floor apartment on West Fifty-seventh Street. Guests observed a moment of silence for Armani, who had died a few days earlier, at the age of ninety-one, before tucking into what Chou described, not inaccurately, as "the best Chinese food you've ever eaten.""
"talking about his relationship with King Charles. When they met for the first time, in 2017, at an event in London, Charles was still a prince. They bonded over their shoes. "I said, 'Your shoes look amazing!' And he said, 'They're twenty years old!'" Marchetti recalled. "They were perfect, absolutely perfect. And my shoes were perfect, too, and ten years old.""
Federico Marchetti employed sprezzatura to advance luxury fashion online, convincing Giorgio Armani to sell digitally and building e-commerce platforms for elite houses before founding Yoox. He sold Yoox in 2018 for a valuation of six billion dollars and then pursued new influence, including collaboration with King Charles III. Marchetti promoted his memoir, The Geek of Chic, at a book party hosted by Silas Chou, where guests observed a moment of silence for Armani. Marchetti lives in Milan and on Lake Como and recounts bonding with Charles over well-maintained shoes and shared interest in sustainability in fashion.
Read at The New Yorker
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