Fashion
Former Bulgari CEO Francesco Trapani passes away at 68

Translated by
Nazia BIBI KEENOO
Published
September 11, 2025
Italy is mourning the death of Francesco Trapani, the iconic luxury goods executive best known for transforming the Bulgari family business into a global leader in jewelry. He died on September 10 at his home in Rome following an illness. He was 68. Trapani was the great-grandson of Sotirio Bulgari, founder of the Roman jeweler Bulgari, and took over the reins of the company in 1984 at the age of just 27.
A graduate in business economics from the University of Naples, Trapani specialized in business administration at New York University before joining the family company in 1981 as assistant to the chief financial officer. Over the course of three decades, he transformed the historic Roman jeweler into a major player in the international luxury market, accelerating its diversification into watches, perfumes, and accessories, and launching its expansion into the upmarket hotel industry. In 1995, he took Bulgari public on the Milan Stock Exchange.
Under Trapani’s leadership, Bulgari grew from €25 million in revenue, five boutiques, and 80 employees in 1984 to €1.5 billion in sales, 300 stores, and 4,000 employees by 2011.
When the company was sold to LVMH in 2011, it was valued at €4.3 billion. Following the acquisition, Trapani led the integration of Bulgari into the French luxury group, overseeing LVMH’s watch and jewelry division until 2014. He continued to advise Bernard Arnault on jewelry strategy for several years, remaining on LVMH’s board of directors until 2016.
In early 2014, Trapani joined the Italian investment fund Clessidra as chairman. He left in 2017 to join the board of Tiffany & Co., resigning at the end of 2018 following the announcement of the American jeweler’s pending acquisition by LVMH.
He later entered a new chapter in finance, becoming active in several investment groups, including Bluebell Capital Partners, Tages Group, and VAM Investments.
Jean-Christophe Babin, CEO of Bulgari, paid tribute to Trapani in a public message, praising his visionary leadership and enduring influence on the jewelry house.
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Fashion
Nominations open for H&M Foundation’s Global Change Award 2026

The journey towards a net-zero textile industry advances as the H&M Foundation has opened nominations for the Global Change Award (GCA) 2026 on September 1. The annual innovation challenge supports bold changemakers working to reshape fashion.
The H&M Foundation has opened nominations for the Global Change Award (GCA) 2026, seeking early-stage innovations in responsible production, mindful consumption, sustainable materials, and wildcards.
In partnership with The Mills Fabrica, the award aims to accelerate transformative solutions like bio-based fibres, AI-driven design, and recycling.
Each year, new ideas emerge to transform how fashion is made, used, and valued. “Each new year when the nominations open, so much has happened in the world since the last round; we see new challenges, needs, technological break throughs and opportunities. I’m always curious to see the potential that’s out there, and the new disruptive ideas that passionate changemakers are sitting on right now,” said Annie Lindmark, programme director for Innovation at the H&M Foundation.
For the year 2026, GCA is seeking early-stage innovations in four categories: responsible production – rethinking how fashion is made; mindful consumption – redefining how we use and value fashion; sustainable materials and processes – reinventing fibres and methods; and wildcards – unexpected, transformative ideas with disruptive potential.
Applicants can also apply through The Mills Fabrica, an official nominator and long-standing GCA partner with hubs in Hong Kong and London. Positioned at the intersection of sustainability, technology, and textiles, The Mills Fabrica helps surface bold ideas often overlooked by traditional industry channels, H&M Foundation said in a release.
“We are truly excited to see creative, resilient, and purpose-driven innovators stepping forward – especially those with a deep-rooted commitment to driving impact at scale and a willingness to challenge the status quo,” Cintia Nunes, general manager and head of Asia at The Mills Fabrica, explains.
The nomination model has already diversified winner profiles and expanded the award’s global reach. Looking ahead, Lindmark expressed excitement for more ‘Wildcard’ submissions, while GCA’s Cintia highlighted opportunities in bio-based fibres, circular materials, AI-driven design, post-consumer recycling, and robotics for localised, demand-responsive manufacturing.
The 2026 edition aims to accelerate innovations that can drive systemic change in fashion’s sustainability journey, spotlighting changemakers with the courage to reimagine the industry.
“Supporting early-stage innovation is essential because it’s where the seeds of radical transformation begin,” Cintia said.
“In 10 years, I hope the changemakers we select today will have helped build a textile industry that thrives within planetary boundaries and supports human wellbeing,” Annie concluded.
Fibre2Fashion News Desk (HU)
Fashion
Bestseller CEO’s Klarna stake drives $1.7 billion investment comeback

By
Bloomberg
Published
September 11, 2025
Anders Holch Povlsen has accumulated stakes in listed online retailers, banks, and other finance firms over the past two decades, while overseeing one of the world’s largest closely held fashion fortunes.
But it’s a lucrative bet on Klarna Group Plc that’s currently driving the 52-year-old billionaire’s wealth revamp.
Povlsen, chief executive officer of Danish clothing retailer Bestseller, is among the biggest winners from the initial public offering of the financial technology company, which began trading Wednesday in New York and closed almost 15% above its offering price of $40 per share.
He now owns a roughly $1.4 billion stake in the Swedish business, making it his largest holding in a publicly traded company, while also cashing in at least $250 million from the offering, which priced above the marketed ranges, according to Bloomberg calculations. Povlsen has overall gains of more than 600% from his investment in the provider of buy-now, pay-later financing, taking the value of his disclosed holdings in listed companies to about $2.5 billion, the calculations show.
A representative for Povlsen — who has a total net worth of $6.9 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index — didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
Despite Klarna’s current valuation falling well below its 2021 peak of $45.6 billion, Povlsen’s investment underscores one of his most successful efforts to diversify a family fortune that began five decades ago, when his parents founded Bestseller as a women’s clothing store in a small Danish town.
Povlsen acquired a 10% stake in Klarna in mid-2017 through his family office, Heartland, just weeks before the fintech was valued at approximately $2.3 billion. He earlier used the investment firm to acquire holdings in e-commerce fashion sites Zalando SE and ASOS Plc. Heartland’s other listed assets include Funding Circle Holdings Plc, a London-based lending platform that has struggled since its initial public offering in 2018.
While also a major landowner in Scotland, most of Povlsen’s fortune remains tied up in Bestseller, where he first began working as a teenager before taking over from his parents as owner and managing director in 2001.
In a rare interview this year to mark Bestseller’s 50th anniversary, Povlsen said he originally wanted to start an e-commerce firm before deciding to work in the family business, underscoring his long-standing interest in the sector that Klarna has helped transform since its own creation in 2005.
“My parents did everything they could to dissuade me from following in their footsteps,” he told the Spin Off fashion magazine. “The more they tried, the more my interest in Bestseller grew.”
Other winners in Klarna’s IPO include the founders Victor Jacobsson, Niklas Adalberth, and Sebastian Siemiatkowski, who’s also its CEO. They cashed in at least $50 million of their combined holdings in the oversubscribed IPO, which valued the company at approximately $15 billion, according to filings.
The three now control overall stakes worth more than $2 billion in Klarna, a company that has evolved from a European clone of PayPal Holdings Inc. to one of the world’s biggest providers of short-term consumer loans as it seeks to disrupt the banking sector.
“You have to be willing to push the envelope,” Siemiatkowski said in an interview Tuesday with Bloomberg News.
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