MILAN — As the rebound in luxury spending has yet to materialize, Florentine sartorial brand Stefano Ricci is betting on continuity to weather the slowdown — without standing still.
For its spring 2027 collection, in keeping with its world trip concept dubbed “SR Explorer,” the brand traveled to Tanzania, the “primal land,” as creative director Filippo Ricci characterized it.
“It is a place where the earth breathes and every sunrise feels like the very first day of creation. This is the ancestral place where you discover the difference between a traveler and a child coming back home,” he said.
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Over several days in the country, the trip — Stefano Ricci’s ninth — spanned the Tarangire region guarded by the Maasai, and the Serengeti national park with its rich wildlife, including leopards and families of lions and lionesses and their cubs appearing in campaign imagery.
The team then hovered over the Great Migration in a hot air balloon experience and spent time with the local community of hunters, Hadzabe, before moving over to the forests of the Gombe Stream and the shores of Lake Tanganyika to meet chimpanzees.
The untamed beauty of nature takes center stage in the spring 2027 campaign images captured by Ami Vitale, the National Geographic explorer at large, photographer and filmmaker.
The destination also informed the lineup, rich in safari-inspired pieces and an earthy, washed color palette.
It also nods to one marquee Stefano Ricci customer, the late South African anti-apartheid activist and president of the country Nelson Mandela, who famously had silk shirts made by the Florentine brand. Those shirts inspired silk shirt and trouser ensembles in sage, beige and tobacco, infused with a laid-back attitude.
Perhaps the most defining silhouette, safari field jackets with drop shoulders and bellow pockets, are offered in several weights and yarn blends, including the luxurious Giza 45 cotton, in addition to linen, silk and lightweight wool. They are paired with drawstring tailored pants, Bermuda shorts and cargo trousers and layered atop airy mock-neck knits and casual shirts.
Eveningwear takes on a richer palette, with tuxedos crafted by the Stefano Ricci-owned Antico Setificio Fiorentino somewhat inspired by ancient Maasai motifs for blazers paired with pristine white shirts and black pants.
The collection will also be showcased at the upcoming edition of Pitti Uomo, running June 16 to 19.
Adding a social responsibility component to the Tanzania trip as part of its ongoing commitment to supporting local communities wherever it hosts an SR Explorer mission, Stefano Ricci has forged ties with the Jane Goodall Institute Tanzania, focused on chimpanzees’ conservation programs.
For its collections, the brand has so far visited Peru; Luxor, Egypt; Iceland; the Galápagos Islands; Mongolia; Chilean Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, as well as Cambodia and India, for which it tapped photographer Steve McCurry.
Despite a global slowdown in luxury spending, the company is not losing sight of its long-term ambitions and targets, while acknowledging a “normalization” of its growth rate.
In 2025 Stefano Ricci logged sales of 217 million euros, up 1 percent compared to the previous year, net of a big-ticket, special interior project accounted for in 2024.
Chief executive officer Niccolò Ricci said the brand’s performance in the first four months of 2026 has been resilient globally, with sales up 2 percent versus a year earlier despite its strong exposure to the Middle East, which has been hit by the war in the Gulf region.
“As part of our strategic vision, we continue to invest in projects that strengthen our international positioning,” Ricci said, mentioning store openings in Batumi, Georgia, and Mexico City in 2026.
The brand also plans to plant a flag in Rome, opening a 1,937-square-foot boutique on Via Bocca di Leone, inside a storied building.