Desire moves before the numbers.
Rafael Carlesso is a luxury strategist and analyst. He reads where desire is built or lost, and designs the strategy that builds it, from image to price, and renews it as the market moves. The financial results only prove it.
Talks and keynotes on how luxury houses build desire, lose it and renew it. Brand strategy and brand insight for global houses, rising maisons, the agencies that serve them and luxury real estate.
"Discipline is a finite lever. Desire is the renewable one."
As quoted by Reuters, July 2026
THE AI DESIRE INDEX
The houses the machines desire.
A public ranking of 180 luxury houses by what AI systems say about them, read through three lenses: Taste, Gravity and Authority. Revised monthly.
PRESS
Quoted twice by Reuters, interviewed by Valor Econômico (Brazil), quoted by Fibre2Fashion (India). Republished across five continents and six languages. Cited three times by LinkedIn News.
Reuters, July 2026. On LVMH's second-quarter results. "Discipline is a finite lever. Desire is the renewable one." Read on Reuters →
Reuters, May 2026. On LVMH's sale of Marc Jacobs. "LVMH is telling the market it will no longer subsidise the segment that has lost pricing trust with the aspirational consumer." Read on Reuters →
Valor Econômico (Brazil), August 2026. Interviewed on the luxury first half. "Too early to call it recovery. What came back was discipline, not desire." Read on Valor →
Fibre2Fashion (India), September 2026. On Chanel's China strategy. "When a market stops rewarding public display, the private room becomes the product." Read on Fibre2Fashion →
Inside Intelligence Briefs and Notes
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Hermès Pays for 2030 in Basis Points
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Zegna Group: One Brand Carries The Group
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LVMH: The Margin Held. Desire Did Not.
About
Rafael's eye was trained twice: as an architect, in beauty and built image, and as managing partner of a premium real estate company, carrying brand, pricing and P&L under commercial risk. He works from Milan, in writing, in English, Italian, French and Portuguese, for a sector that is global by definition.
Work with me
Four engagements, always in writing.
For global houses and groups: an outside reading of where desire is built or lost, and what it says about pricing power.
For rising maisons: the strategy to build it. Positioning, brand architecture and communication that creates desire before the product exists.
For agencies working with luxury brands: diagnosis, research and pitch support, the case for brand investment made from outside the room.
For luxury real estate: developments positioned and sold the way great houses are built, image first.