Mark Zuckerberg has been on a tour of Italy’s top luxury brands. And this time, it wasn’t just to perfect his outfit: his luxury T-shirts, it should be remembered, are made to order in the Botte and his jackets come (like those of Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon) from Brunello Cucinelli. Even though Mark Zuckerberg went to see the designer last week, it was more to promote the new opportunities of Meta, the new name (and the new strategy in the Metaverse) of the former Facebook.
But Mark Zuckerberg also met a host of other transalpine executives. From Leonardo Del Vecchio, President of EssilorLuxottica, to Federico Marchetti (Yoox), not forgetting Renzo Rosso (OTB), Remo Ruffini (Moncler), Diego Della Valle (Tod’s), Geoffroy Lefebvre (YNAP), Marco Gobbetti (Ferragamo), Lorenzo Bertelli, Prada’s Head of Corporate Social Responsibility, and Luca Colombo, General Manager of Meta Italy, all of these meetings were tracked on social networks.
The first one to make the buzz was posted by Marc Zuckerberg himself. “It’s great to be back in Milan to discuss plans for new smart glasses with Leonardo Del Vecchio and the EssilorLuxottica team,” he explicitly captioned the post. “Leonardo is using a prototype of our neural interface EMG bracelet that will eventually allow you to control your glasses and other devices.” At the end of 2021, Meta and EssilorLuxottica had already jointly launched Ray-Ban Stories, their first-generation smart glasses, in the US. These are also available since mid-April in France, Austria, Spain and Belgium.
The meta-future.
With the other luxury majors, the talk was not explicitly detailed. But speaking of an “inspiring discussion on the meta-future” in an Instagram post, Renzo Rosso, OTB‘s number one, gave away the scoop.
In a statement, Meta said it was “delighted to continue working with Italian partners to bring this vision of the Metaverse to life”, stressing that it “would not be built by a single company”…And this, knowing that Italian fashion companies are already using “new technologies like augmented and virtual reality” to sell their products.
Leading Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and Whastapp, Meta suffered a 21% decline in earnings to €7bn in the first quarter. Hence the accelerated shift towards the Metaverse, with major investments in the process.
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Featured photos : © The New York Times
