Cucinelli’s Creed

An ardent student of philosophy, Brunello Cucinelli contemplates how looking to the past can help the fashion industry—and humankind—map out a better future

Brunello Cucinelli is as much a philosopher as he is a designer, only cashmere is the medium through which he imparts his beliefs. It is not unusual to hear the venerated Italian designer, renowned for high-end knitwear, quote everyone from Confucius to Xenophanes in any given conversation, as he did with me the day after he opened Pitti Uomo with his latest menswear collection. “Plato, followed by

Aristotle and then Jean-jacques Rousseau, were the first to introduce the idea of a social contract,” says Cucinelli, while explaining the writings he ruminated over during lockdown last year. “I’m confident now more than ever that we need a social contract, this time not just between human beings, but with the animals and our environment, to strike a balance between profit and giving back. That must be the legacy of this pandemic.”

The 67-year-old designer spent much of the past year secluded in Solomeo, Italy, a utopia of sorts, which he bought in 1985 to serve as his family home and “business village” of 800 employees, complete with a kindergarten and restaurant, as well as a school of arts and crafts and an idyllic garden lined with busts of philosophers for meditation. He penned open letters