The New Luxury Leaders

By Kate Betts; Sarah Raper Larenaudie; Camilla Morton; Nadia Mustafa; Kate Novack; Josh Patner; Michiko Toyama; Rebecca Winters and Kristina Zimbalist

Chanel's Major Merchant Maureen Chiquet

Claim to fame: On Oct. 1, Chiquet, 41, takes over as president and chief operating officer of Chanel Inc. from Arie Kopelman, who is retiring after 18 years.

Defining moment: After a stint peddling L'Oreal hair color to supermarkets in France, Chiquet spent 15 years at Gap Inc. She helped develop the Old Navy division before being named president of Banana Republic. But she has had zero experience in luxury goods.

Luxury quotient: Chanel's core businesses in the U.S. look strong, but hot brands cool. Chiquet's merchandising savvy should help keep the 94-year-old brand evergreen.

Bottler of Miracles Olivia Chantecaille

Claim to fame: As creative director of her family-owned cosmetics business, she can convince a soap-and-water minimalist that $290 face cream is a reasonable--even a requisite--purchase.

Defining moment: Chantecaille, 31, co-founded the company in 1997 with her mother Sylvie, the brains behind Estee Lauder's groundbreaking Prescriptives brand.

Luxury quotient: A near religious devotion to exotic ingredients has helped propel the brand. The success of its $290 lifting cream more than doubled the company's skin-care sales--making it one of the few makeup lines to thrive in that competitive market.

Chic Shoemaker Diego Della Valle

Claim to fame: He took his family's century-old shoe factory in the Marche region of Italy and turned it into a leading luxury leather-goods brand with $466 million in sales last year.

Defining moment: Della Valle started Tod's in 1978 after spotting a photo of the Italian industrialist Gianni Agnelli wearing soft driving shoes--leading to the brainstorm that casual shoes could be chic.

Luxury quotient: In November 2000, Tod's S.p.A.--which also includes Hogan, a lower-priced line of accessories, and the sportswear brand Fay--was entered on the Milan stock exchange. But Della Valle's current triumph is his football team, Fiorentina. Maybe a line of soccer shoes is next.

King of Bling Sean Combs

Claim to fame: Entrepreneurial jack-of-all-trades P. Diddy is a Grammy-winning music producer--performer, CEO of the fashion label Sean John and an investor in the young couturier Zac Posen. He is also an actor, a marathoner and a political cheerleader.

Defining moment: Combs staked his claim as a marketing mastermind with the buzz generated by his 28th-birthday bash and its allstar videotaped invite.

Luxury quotient: He has built an image--and an industry--around his flinging of bling. Last year he designed an SUV with six TV screens, and his date this past July 4 was an original copy of the Declaration of Independence.

Haute E-tailer Natalie Massenet

Claim to fame: Anyone who has doubts about luxury fashion selling online has yet to meet Massenet, the founder of Net-a-Porter.com Based in London, the high-end shopping website gets about 5.5 million page views a month.

Defining moment: A former fashion-magazine editor, Massenet, 39, came up with the idea for the company when she couldn't find designer collections online. Net-a-Porter.com launched four years ago with just eight employees.

Luxury quotient: Today there is a staff of 100, and sales, which totaled $11.7 million in 2003, have been doubling every year. The company's specialty is hard-to-find fashion musts. (Waiting lists start as soon as the runway shows end.) Massenet has a simple explanation for her success: "We sell the must-haves, not the misses."

Bergdorf's Good Man Jim Gold

Claim to fame: At just 40 years old, Gold has climbed company ranks from his first job out of Harvard Business School--manager of a Trim-a-Tree shop--to become CEO of New York City's luxury retailer Bergdorf Goodman.

Defining moment: As a vice president at Neiman Marcus, Gold developed a business plan for the company's new clearance stores that upped revenues from $20 million to $80 million in three years.

Luxury quotient: With hopes of positioning Bergdorf's as a brand that cuts across generational lines, Gold is overseeing a top-to-bottom renovation of the Fifth Avenue emporium, and this month he launches the company's first fully transactional website.

Crystal Queen Nadja Swarovski

Claim to fame: As head of communications and a fifth-generation Swarovski, Nadja, 34, embodies the freshly glamorous image of the family-run Austrian crystal business.

Defining moment: Before joining Swarovski, Nadja worked for an art gallery and in public relations in New York City. "But crystals have always been inherently part of my life," she says.

Luxury quotient: She has focused on shedding the brand's Liberace image. This fall Swarovski is exhibiting "Rocks on the Runway"--a show featuring its work with jewelers like Fiona Knapp and Danilo. Arrivederci, Liberace.

Diamond in the Rough Francesco Trapani

Claim to fame: The Bulgari Group CEO transformed his family's business from a "club capable of making stable profits" to the third largest maker of fine jewelry, after Tiffany and Richemont.

Defining moment: He had accepted an offer from a London investment bank when his uncles stepped in. "The family said, 'If you stay, we will make you the chairman,'" he recalls.

Luxury quotient: Bulgari's product lines now include watches, perfume and accessories. In 1995 Trapani listed Bulgari on the Milan stock exchange. And he feted his 20th anniversary this year with the biggest gem yet: a posh Bulgari Hotel in Milan.

Retail Renegade Sheik Majed al-Sabah

Claim to fame: President and chairman of the Villa Moda empire, al-Sabah, 35, has brought luxury shopping to the Middle East and helped reeducate the West on the spending habits of the region.

Defining moment: He opened his first store--a 100,000-sq.-ft., $20 million, 24-hour emporium in Kuwait City--in 2002. He opened in Dubai the following year and in Qatar last May.

Luxury quotient: Al-Sabah continues to expand despite a volatile political situation. Bombay is next, followed by a store and a 50-room hotel in Bahrain. Al-Sabah says he plans to launch in Vietnam, Singapore and Saudi Arabia by 2005.

Department Head Shigeaki Wada

Claim to fame: Millennium Retailing Inc., the holding company headed by Wada, last year united two of Japan's largest department stores (Sogo and Seibu) to form the country's second largest department-store group (after Takashimaya).

Defining moment: In 1957, Wada, now 70, joined Seibu Department Stores Ltd., working in the owner's inner circle. At 35 Wada was named a director.

Luxury quotient: Sogo and Seibu sales have beaten expectations, with an '04 operating profit of $315 million. Wada plans to redesign Seibu outlets throughout Japan and open a new Sogo store in Osaka. "I want to live in a world where money is not a concern," he says. He won't be finding such a place soon.

Mail-Order Magnate Eva Jeanbart Lorenzotti

Claim to fame: Not so long ago, catalogs garnered about as much respect in the luxury world as layaway plans. Lorenzotti, 35, changed that with Vivre, her glossy source book of luxe goods.

Defining moment: Armed with focus-group research, she persuaded Christofle and Cristal Saint-Louis to sign on for the debut issue in 1995.

Luxury quotient: The biannual book now carries more than 150 brands and reaches 2 million people, who can buy into Vivre's dreamy world for $25 (for a leather baseball). And then there are the $13,530 alligator-skin ponchos.

Polo's Media Mogul David Lauren

Claim to fame: Ralph Lauren's son David, recently promoted to oversee the company's advertising and marketing, is on a mission to turn his father's global fashion establishment into a multimedia powerhouse, a launching pad for websites, films and magazines.

Defining moment: After college, Lauren, 32, ran his own Gen X magazine, Swing. His first full-fledged project for Ralph Lauren is Polo.com and the site's editorial content reflects his original passion.

Luxury quotient: Shopping is Polo.com's bread and butter, and Lauren wisely utilizes tried-and-true etail tactics to sell the company's wares. But these sweaters--and teddy bears--are cashmere.

Cosmetics Emperor William Lauder

Claim to fame: Grandson of the late Estee Lauder, he rose through the ranks and was recently named CEO of the Estee Lauder Cos.--the $5 billion beauty enterprise chaired by his father Leonard.

Defining moment: Legendary for thinking outside the box, he spearheaded Origins, the popular botanically based line, and is a champion of the Beauty Bank, an in-house think tank.

Luxury quotient: The company has become the LVMH of beauty in recent years--acquiring 13 brands, from MAC to La Mer. But its original five still make up the lion's share of sales. "We are brand builders," says Lauder. And he is just getting started. He aims to double the size of the company in five to 10 years.

Marketing Maestros Silas Chou and Lawrence Stroll

Claim to fame: Known for their Midas touch with companies like Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger (in the 1990s they turned Hilfiger into a $1.8 billion brand), they have set their sights on Michael Kors, buying 85% of his company, with plans to turn it into a $1 billion brand.

Defining moment: They snapped up the stuffy British luxury-goods company Asprey & Garrard for a reported $150 million and enlisted Norman Foster to design the London flagship.

Luxury quotient: If $10,000 crocodile handbags are on your shopping list, then maybe Stroll and Chou can turn Asprey into the next Hermes. Asprey is, after all, the place where Queen Victoria once bought her Christmas presents.

Reported by Kate Betts, Sarah Raper Larenaudie, Camilla Morton, Nadia Mustafa, Kate Novack, Josh Patner, Michiko Toyama, Rebecca Winters and Kristina Zimbalist