Delivering The Dream – Erica Corbellini

Through what is often referred to as the selling ceremony, the retail interaction becomes a highly personalized, theatrical moment where service and storytelling merge. There are three strategic reasons why brands are reinforcing control over their retail communication touchpoints: to express the brand identity holistically, promoting a total look and lifestyle through coherent messaging; to gain direct access to consumer insights, enabling more precise and responsive communication and CRM strategies; to transform retail into a high-impact storytelling platform that absorbs not only margins but also narrative control from third-party distributors.

The store is therefore not only a profit center but also a strategic content hub, where communication is made tangible. It must offer more reasons to visit and more reasons to stay, extending the dream factor through design, service, and digital amplification. In short, the store of today, and tomorrow, is a physical manifestation of the brand’s voice: a space that delivers meaning, not just merchandise.

From Customer Relationship Management to Clienteling Customer relationship management (CRM) refers to the practices, strategies, and technologies that brands use to manage and analyze interactions with their clients. Its purpose is to strengthen relationships, enhance loyalty, and drive growth through a better understanding of customer behavior and preferences. Compared with other sectors, such as mass retail, fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), or beauty chains, fashion and luxury have historically been slower in developing a structured customer approach. This delay comes from a creative vision centered on product and style.

It is a strength, because creativity in fashion is not something produced by data or by the analysis of what already exists. Luxury fashion differs from fast fashion because it is not about giving customers what they want today. It is about designing today what customers don’t know they will want 12 months from now.

This comes from intuition, cultural awareness, and the point of view of the Creative Director, the CEO, or the company’s founder.

Delivering the Dream is the first book to address a critical question in fashion and luxury: how things are actually done. It focuses on execution as the true driver of long-term brand value. The book brings together an academic perspective on business models and strategy with a hands-on understanding of marketing and brand practice. It explores how fashion and luxury brands generate cultural impact, product desirability, and customer engagement.

Rather than universal formulas, it builds on companies’ business models, recognizing that different structures require different balances between marketing and creative direction. The book examines key industry themes, including the intersection between fashion and sport, the role of artificial intelligence in creative processes, the balance between global brand image and local adaptation, sustainability in practice, the value of collaborations, performance metrics and budget allocation. Enriched by contributions from creative directors, top managers, and industry experts, Delivering the Dream connects strategy and practice, showing how ideas are translated into coherent actions across fashion shows, events, stores, media, storytelling, and commercial touchpoints.

OceanofPDF.com Erica Corbellini is a tenured lecturer at Bocconi University, where she teaches Fashion and Luxury Management and has designed courses on business models, branding, and marketing strategies since 1999. She previously directed the Master in Fashion, Experience & Design Management (MAFED) and led research and consulting projects across diverse international markets, working with key industry players. Her Coursera course has reached over 315,000 participants. Tomaso Galli is a strategic adviser in the areas of fashion communications and marketing, corporate communication, and issues/crisis management.

In the last 25 years, he has worked in London, Milan, New York, and Paris with CEOs, creative directors, and CMOs in companies such as Armani, Gucci, Loro Piana, Prada, Saint Laurent, Thom Browne, Tom Ford, Versace, and Zegna. Tomaso is also founding partner of several start-up companies and regularly lectures at SDA Bocconi. OceanofPDF.com OceanofPDF.com edited by Erica Corbellini · Tomaso Galli DELIVERING THE DREAM Cultural Relevance, Product Desirability, Customer Engagement: Strategy and Execution for Fashion and Luxury Foreword by Domenico De Sole OceanofPDF.com Disclaimer The content of this book is original and written by the authors.

It reflects our ideas, structure and voice. To improve readability and accuracy, we used AI tools that are increasingly part of academic workflows. No part of the book was authored by AI. Cover: Creative direction: Greta Westman, Stockholm Illustration: Helen Yu, New York City Graphic design: Cristina Bernasconi, Milan Typesetting: Laura Panigara, Cesano Boscone (MI) Copyright © 2026 Bocconi University Press EGEA S.p.A. EGEA S.p.A.

Via Salasco, 5 – 20136 Milano Tel. 02/5836.5751 – Fax 02/5836.5753 [email protected] – www.egeaeditore.it All rights reserved, including but not limited to translation, total or partial adaptation, reproduction, and communication to the public by any means on any media (including microfilms, films, photocopies, electronic or digital media), as well as electronic information storage and retrieval systems.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: 991387dad523fd18
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 3,413,414 bytes (3.255 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• ISBN: 9791280623805, 9791281627819, 9791222982052, 9791222982069, 9791281627826
• Pages: 257
• Language: English (en)

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• Estimated Reading Time: 447.09 minutes
• Total Words: 89,418
• Total Characters: 599,610
• Average Words per Page: 347.93
• Average Characters per Page: 2333.11

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