Two Worlds of Luxury: A Strategic Comparison of Loro Piana and Balmain

Esade Fashion Association Event Recap

On November 17th, Esade Fashion hosted an insightful and thought-provoking event featuring Whitney Garlick-Maniatty, Director of Wholesale for the Americas at Givenchy (LVMH Fashion Group). With two decades of experience in retail and sixteen years in wholesale, Whitney offered a rare, inside look at the strategies, operations and responsibilities that shape the future of luxury fashion.

Whitney began her talk by sharing her unexpected path into fashion. She initially studied biology with the intention of becoming a doctor. Instead, she found herself drawn into the world of retail, where she has now spent twenty years, nine of which have been centred around luxury brand strategy, market positioning and wholesale management.

Whitney is also an Executive MBA graduate from IESE and a Sustainability Fellow whose research focuses on shared responsibility and forced labour in global supply chains. Her academic expertise and industry experience created the perfect foundation for an event dedicated to understanding the complexities of modern luxury.

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Loro Piana and Balmain: Two Luxury Houses, Two Philosophies

Whitney explored the stark contrast between Loro Piana and Balmain. Although both sit at the top of the luxury pyramid, their identities, value propositions and strategic foundations could not be more different.

Loro Piana: The Pursuit of Pure Quality

Loro Piana belongs to the high luxury segment. The brand is known for its extraordinary fabrics, technical innovation and unique sourcing capabilities. It maintains vertically integrated production networks, strong supplier relationships and a product team that oversees both its textile and fashion divisions. The house has no creative director, which reflects its philosophy of quiet excellence rather than creative spectacle.

Loro Piana’s clientele consists of high-net-worth individuals who value understatement, longevity and the idea that quality speaks for itself.

Balmain: Creativity, Power and Iconic Expression

Balmain positions itself as a luxury designer brand rooted in bold creative direction. Under Antonin's leadership, the approach of the brand has become rooted in craftsmanship and artistic sensitivity. Balmain’s main capability lies in its visionary design and ability to translate creativity into global relevance.

The brand’s customer is equally bold. Balmain appeals to a celebrity-driven, status-focused audience that embraces expressive glamour rather than subtle luxury.

Whitney explained the differences in how luxury houses manage distribution. Balmain has built strong success in the retail market but substantially depends on wholesale partnerships. This increases brand exposure but decreases control over product presentation, timing and storytelling. Retailers hold more influence, especially as many operate loyalty programs and curate their own versions of the brand image.

Loro Piana, by contrast, protects its exclusivity through strict distribution and vertically integrated systems. An example she shared was the brand’s iconic white sole shoe, which became so popular that Loro Piana needed to limit how much retailers could purchase in order to preserve desirability and authenticity.

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Understanding the Supply Chain

One of the most valuable parts of the evening was Whitney’s breakdown of the luxury supply chain. She highlighted the five tiers that take a garment from extraction to final distribution.

From cashmere farmers in Mongolia to the meticulous fabric processing done at Loro Piana’s mills, each stage involves specialised labour and significant environmental and ethical considerations.

Luxury brands often operate with made-to-order production, allowing distributors to place orders before manufacturing begins. This system protects quality but creates challenges regarding stock ownership and presentation. Whitney also explained the role of concessions, where brands retain control over inventory and brand identity inside retail spaces.

Vertical integration gives companies like LVMH immense strategic advantage. Ownership of multiple stages of the supply chain creates better control over product quality, pricing, customer experience and brand image.

Whitney highlighted that LVMH’s acquisition of Loro Piana was largely due to its highly integrated production capabilities, which are rare even within luxury.

The presentation then turned toward supply chain fragmentation, pricing policies and the competitive pressures that shape the global market. Whitney highlighted three key issues.

Global fragmentation makes it difficult to monitor conditions across borders.

Historical pricing shifts have given retailers more power and pushed manufacturers into low cost production environments.

Lack of transparency continues to be one of the industry’s biggest challenges.

These pressures have real consequences. Whitney referenced the Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh, labour exploitation in Myanmar and the growing crisis of textile landfills in Ghana, where unsold or low-quality Western garments accumulate in catastrophic volumes.

Circularity and Innovation: Luxury’s New Frontier

Whitney discussed emerging innovations in sustainability. These include regenerative materials, recycled cashmere, biodegradable fibres and blockchain-based product passports. Loro Piana’s recycled cashmere campaign served as a case study for how heritage brands can integrate innovation without compromising luxury.

She also highlighted the growing role of big data in forecasting demand, avoiding overproduction and improving transparency.

The event concluded with Whitney’s research on shared responsibility. She explained that supply chains are systems of interdependence, meaning responsibility is distributed among actors with different levels of power and benefit.

Five parameters determine responsibility. These are connection, contribution, benefit, power and capacity. Those who profit the most or have the most influence carry the greatest duty to prevent harm. Forced labour occurs when work is involuntary and coerced. Therefore, brands, governments and consumers all share responsibility for protecting workers with less power.

Whitney’s message was simple yet powerful. If you benefit from a system, you are responsible for its ethics.

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Finally, we would like to sincerely thank everyone who made this event possible. Our deepest appreciation goes to Whitney Garlick-Maniatty for her inspiring talk and for sharing such valuable insights into luxury strategy, supply chain responsibility and the future of fashion. We are also grateful to our partners, Ikenocha Fusion, Kiosko de las Flores, Kombucha Flax, Clorawfila, Berrylona, Flores Navarro and Keami Beauty, whose support helped create a welcoming atmosphere that truly elevated the event.