Key takeaways
- The 2026 RLC Fashion Summit convenes on June 3–4 at the Four Seasons Hotel Milano; an invite-only gathering of global fashion and luxury leaders at a moment when the industry is fundamentally reassessing how, and where, it grows.
- Confirmed speakers include the CEOs of Brunello Cucinelli, Selfridges Group, Golden Goose, Kiton, LuxExperience, Canali Group, alongside senior leaders from Prada Group, Saks Global, Permira, and Cenomi Centers.
- The summit agenda addresses four themes shaping the industry’s next chapter: The New Geography of Growth, The Reinvention of Desire, The New Economics of Luxury, and AI and the Innovation Frontiers.
The 2026 RLC Fashion Summit in Milan convenes on June 3–4 at the Four Seasons Hotel Milano, bringing together an invite-only group of global fashion and luxury leaders at a key moment for the sector. As operating models are tested by macroeconomic headwinds, shifting regional demand, and the accelerating integration of artificial intelligence, the summit provides a rare forum in which the individuals making consequential decisions engage in direct conversation with one another.
Who will be in the room?
Confirmed speakers include Luca Lisandroni, Chief Executive Officer of Brunello Cucinelli; André Maeder, Chief Executive Officer of Selfridges Group; and Lana Todorovich, Chief Global Brands Officer of Saks Global. Also confirmed are Silvio Campara, Chief Executive Officer of Golden Goose; Antonio De Matteis, Chief Executive Officer of Kiton; Stefano Canali, Chief Executive Officer of Canali Group; Andrea Bonini, Group Chief Financial Officer of Prada Group; Francesco Pascalizzi, Partner and Co-Head of Consumer at Permira; and Alison Rehill-Erguven, Chief Executive Officer of Cenomi Centers an more.
The gathering spans brands, retail platforms, investment firms, and real estate operators creating a cross-sector composition that reflects the increasingly interconnected nature of the challenges now facing the global fashion industry.
Why does the 2026 RLC Fashion Summit matter right now?
The summit arrives at a moment when the global fashion industry is being asked to answer questions it has been avoiding for years. The era of easy growth is over. What replaces it is still being negotiated, and the negotiation is happening at the highest levels of the business.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in luxury. The relationship between brands and their clients has shifted. Trust, once assumed, now has to be earned. Desire, once effortless, now has to be engineered with considerably more care and honesty than before. The brands navigating this well are those willing to have the harder conversation about what they stand for and who they stand for it with.
Then there is geopolitics, a force the industry can no longer treat as background noise. Fashion has always been shaped by culture. It is now being reshaped by a more fragmented world order, one that puts pressure on regulation, supply chains, and the cultural authority that European houses have long taken for granted. How the industry adapts, while preserving creative edge while operating across increasingly divergent markets, is one of the defining strategic questions of this decade.
The geography of ambition is changing, too. The centers of gravity are moving, regional priorities are being redrawn, and the capital and execution required to compete across multiple markets simultaneously demand a level of strategic clarity that the industry is only beginning to develop.
And then there is the question of technology. Not as an abstract future, but as a present reality that is already reshaping how things are made, sold, and experienced. The leaders who treat it seriously are gaining ground. Those who don’t are losing it.
These are the challenges determining which brands and businesses remain relevant, which partnerships hold, and which models survive the decade. The 2026 RLC Fashion Summit exists to address them directly, with the people who are actually accountable for the answers.
What does the program look like?
The program opens on the evening of June 3 with a VIP Dinner and the RLC Honors — RLC Global Forum’s recognition of outstanding leadership and innovation across the industry. The full-day summit on June 4 is structured around four themes that together map the strategic terrain facing brands and executives in the current environment:
-The New Geography of Growth addresses how and where the industry expands as traditional markets mature and emerging regions gain scale.
-The Reinvention of Desire examines how brands rebuild relevance and consumer trust in a market where aspirational spending patterns have shifted materially.
-The New Economics of Luxury interrogates the financial architecture of the sector — from capital allocation and margin management to the long-term viability of pricing as a growth driver.
–AI and the Innovation Frontiers explores how artificial intelligence is being integrated across design, merchandising, and distribution, and what that means for competitive positioning.
“Where and how the global fashion industry grows is now determined across multiple markets, with strategy, capital, and execution increasingly fragmented and distributed,” said Panos Linardos, Chairman of RLC Global Forum. “RLC convenes the individuals and institutions shaping how the industry evolves.”
