Dolce & Gabbana to Manage Wholesale Beauty Business in-House

Dolce & Gabbana is launching a beauty division as part of its plan to bring the company’s 30-year-old $544 million wholesale beauty business in-house and diversify its revenue beyond fashion, the Financial Times (FT) reported Monday (Feb. 7).

D&G’s beauty division will take over development, manufacturing and distribution of its fragrance and makeup products from Japanese cosmetics company Shiseido as part of the restructuring, according to the report. D&G’s licensing agreement with Shiseido ended in December.

“We will be the first Italian fashion brand to manage the beauty category in-house,” Gianluca Toniolo, the new operating chief executive of Dolce & Gabbana Beauty and former managing director of global travel retail at LVMH, told FT.

CEO Alfonso Dolce told Correire della Sera’s L’Economia weekly financial publication, per Reuters: “We are thinking of a business model which could see tie-ups and partnerships with our producers,” he said, adding the change to an in-house beauty division is part of D&G’s “long-term strategy which sees us committed to consolidating, cultivating and promoting Italian artisanal and manufacturing excellence.”

D&G’s beauty division, which will be led by Toniolo and Dolce as president, will launch with capital of about $514.4 million through self-financing and “support from the banking system,” Dolce said, according to Reuters. The sector will have between 130 and 150 employees in Italy and another 100 to 120 workers overseas by March 2023.

The retail value of D&G’s beauty business is about $1.1 billion, said Toniolo in the Reuters report. Perfumes make up the bulk of that revenue, he said, adding the goal is to “double, if not triple” the company’s market share in perfume, boost its standing in makeup and develop skin care products.

Last week, Dolce & Gabbana joined several other fashion brands when it announced in a joint statement with animal rights association Humane Society International that it will end its use of fur in all its collections later this year.

Read more: Dolce & Gabbana Ending Fur Use

Several other fashion brands — including Armani, Kering, Prada, Valentino, Versace, Moncler and luxury eCommerce platform Yoox Net-a-Porter — have also said they will ban the use of animal fur in their products.