THE MILAN-BASED FERRARI CLAN FUSES INNOVATION, ART AND CHEMISTRY TO DRIVE ITS THRIVING COLOR COSMETICS EMPIRE.
BY PETE BORN AND KERRY OLSEN PHOTOGRAPHED BY DAVIDE MAESTRI
n elegant town house situated in the fashion
quadrangle of Milan stands as a testament to how
art and science can intertwine.
Inside the four-story hospitable house hang
works by artists ranging from Andy Warhol to
Lucio Fontana, and the edifice also is the home of Madina
and Dario Ferrari, who, with daughter Arabella Ferrari
and other family members, form the core management
of Intercos, perennially the top-ranked supplier of color
cosmetics to the global makeup industry, despite challenges
by competitors such as Chromavis.
“They are the leaders,” says Chantal Roos, who started
working with Intercos 25 years ago and continued during
her tenure as the head of YSL Beauté. “They are constantly
looking for new ideas and creativity—not only in product
and color, but also in technology.”
She notes that the family success started with the Swiss
skin care company of Dario’s highly accomplished mother,
Nadia Avalle, reached a crescendo with Dario and Madina
and continues to build with Arabella. Their 27-year-old-son,
Gianandrea, entered the business two years ago. “When
some people reach a certain turnover, they ease up,” Roos
notes. “This [company] crosses the generations.”
“I have worked with many labs, but they are in a
different league,” says Sonia Kashuk, a leading makeup
artist and founder of her own brand.
Emily Cohen, who consulted on the development of
Topshop’s recently launched makeup line, adds, “Intercos is
the Rolls-Royce of cosmetics manufacturers.”
Claudia Poccia, global president of the Mark division at
Avon Products Inc., says her company manufactures its own
makeup, but still works with Intercos as a source of new
42 W W D B E AU T Y B I Z
ideas. “We look to Intercos to create and innovate first-to-
market products,” she says.
The yin and yang of art and science can be seen every
year when Intercos unveils its annual trend forecast at
the company headquarters in Agrate Brianza, outside of
Milan. The exhibit reflects the findings of a six-month
search through the worlds of art, fashion and culture—high
and low—by a squad of art experts led by Madina. These
cultural trends are married to the most cutting-edge
molecular innovation that the research and development
department can muster. The offspring of these two
forces are new product technologies and new production
techniques that the company presents as its hallmark. “The
theater of makeup,” is how Kashuk describes it. “There is so
much—so much to experience, so much product to take in,”
she says. “It’s overwhelming.”
“It’s mind blowing,” agrees Cohen. “Each room is
more creative and advanced than the next. It’s like being in
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”
Kashuk draws a line between the Ferraris’ passion for
“It’s mind blowing,” says Emily
Cohen of Intercos’ annual trend
presentation. “Each room is more
creative and advanced than the
next. It’s like being in Charlie and
the Chocolate Factory.”
product development and their decadeslong love of art
collecting. Referring to the family’s house—which also
contains works by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Yayoi Kusama,
Piero Manzoni and Alexander Calder—she says: “They
are incredibly stylish. That sense of style plays into the
product.” Kashuk marvels over the “amazing balance” of the
house—“so fantastical and so comfortable.”
Dario, Intercos’ president and chairman, has been
gradually turning operational duties over to his daughter,
Arabella, for the last 15 years. But there is one operational
aspect he has kept firmly in hand—calling the signals on
innovation, which he describes as the engine of Intercos.
At age 67, Dario remains an imposing presence—at
least one client describes him as “a rock star.” But with all
the success of Intercos, he retains the attitude of one who’s
still pushing to make it.
“I like change,” he says. “I change probably too much,
but only by changing, you can create new things. If you look
in the Italian dictionary, the definition of innovation [is] to
modify a system by adding something new. That’s what we
try to do also in our organization.
“If you keep this philosophy by adding something new,
it drives you,” he continues. “You change probably without
really noticing. It’s very important to improve.”
He points out that it all started with Madina 30 years
ago, when they went to the Cosmoprof trade fair in
Bologna with a tray full of makeup. “We used to sell one
formula and she was making 24 different colors. This was
our innovation 30 years ago,” he recalls.
By the time Arabella joined the firm 17 years ago, the
product offering had evolved somewhat. “I had a box and
we had colors and formulas. We were going around the
CREDITS TKTKTK

FROM LEFT: ARABELLA, DARIO,

GIANANDREA AND MADINA FERRARI
IN THEIR MILAN HOME.
world,” says Arabella, who is now marketing director of the
color business unit of Intercos.
Dario chimes in: “I keep saying, ‘Arabella, don’t do
the same thing you did last time.’ I don’t say ‘better.’ You
have to try to do better, but at least different. This is really
what’s important in innovation…quick speed and doing
something new.”
His penchant for the novel has led the executive to
declare that Benefit Cosmetics is his favorite brand. “They
try to be so different in terms of marketing position,” he says.
He also is fascinated by the speed of merchandising by
fashion chains such as Zara, H&M and Topshop, which
Intercos supplied for its recently launched color line. He’s a
believer in the new color introductions from those retailers,
“if it’s done well and you give the right space, the right
creativity and the right ambiance.” He adds, “The concept
is to bring to the consumer a quality product at the cheaper
price. And that’s what people like,” he continues, hinting
that Topshop may be thinking about taking its new color
line into wholesale distribution.
One trend that Intercos is less excited about is the
industry’s new tendency to incorporate treatment properties
into makeup. “It’s a different culture,” says Dario. “In color,
you can be a little bit crazy. In skin care, it has to be much
more scientific.” As a compromise, his preference is to
add color to skin care. To that end, Intercos has offered
some hybrid products this year. Skin Rescue is billed as
advanced corrective makeup with high coverage. There is
also Advanced Treatment, which turns color products for
the face, eyes and lips into an add-on treatment product
offering antiaging properties.
A hallmark of Intercos is its innovative R&D
department, and one of Dario’s main contentions is that
suppliers such as Intercos shorten the product development
cycle by providing brands with ready-to-go formulas. He
asserts that customers can buy one of his formulas and be
on the market within six to 12 months, compared with two
to two-and-a-half years starting from scratch.
Dario repeatedly asserts that no one invests in
innovation like Intercos, with 500 of 3,000 employees
dedicated to that pursuit. “My husband likes to call
[Dario] Bond,” says Jennifer Balbier, senior vice president
of product development for MAC Cosmetics. “He has
the technology behind him. He’s not just a salesman—
he’s the real deal.” She also describes Arabella as “a super
businesswoman.”
In addition to an innovation center in Italy, Intercos has
four factories in Asia and an expanded plant in the U.S.,
with plans to open a 70,000- to 90,000-square-foot facility
in São Paulo, Brazil, early next year.
Dario says the Brazilian venture will bring to fruition
a new business model that was pioneered in the U.S.,
and later, China. The company has a dual role, supplying
innovation to underdeveloped local brands while servicing
the big international brands that have entered the market.
For last year, Intercos did 55 percent of its total business
in basic color cosmetics, 12.8 percent in special effects, 16
percent in the pencil business, 8.3 percent in private label
and 6.7 percent in skin care.
By retail channel, the business breaks down to 39.6
percent in the mass market, 32.2 percent in prestige, 22.8
percent in direct sales and 5.4 percent in specialty stores.
Geographically, 49.7 percent of the business is done in the
U.S., 44 percent in Europe and 6 percent in Asia.
Dario maintains that Intercos does business with 25 of
the top 30 cosmetics companies in the world.
While cosmetics marketers tend to give Intercos high
marks for creativity and quality, a number of executives claim
there have been problems in the past with production and
making deliveries on time. “We’ll always be the one being
blamed,” protests Arabella, who says problems can crop up
in other parts of the highly complex supply chain, such as
the late arrival of packaging from overseas. “[The brands]
manage one fall season and we manage 20,” she says.
Like everywhere, the recession has bitten deep. The
Intercos business leaped ahead by 15 percent in 2008, then
collapsed by an equally large 15 percent in 2009, leaving
44 W W D B E AU T Y B I Z
“I like change,” says Dario Ferrari. “If you look in the Italian dictionary,
the definition of innovation [is] to modify a system by adding something
new. That’s what we try to do also in our organization.”
the company at 2007 levels by the beginning of this year,
according to Dario, who says there was a pickup in orders
beginning last September and October. For the first quarter
of this year, orders were up by 26 percent over the same
period last year. But that order flow was down by 5 percent
compared with 2008. With the company running 1.7
percent ahead of budget, Dario predicts this year will be “an
acceptable year. The [retailer] destocking is finished, but the
consumer will not be very active.” He adds that this year
may lay the groundwork for an upsurge in product launches.
He expects a growth of 9 to 10 percent for 2010, reaching
$350 million, with the skin care business growing by 20
percent and pencils by 25 to 30 percent.
Arabella says in the U.S., “2010 is still soft as far as
new projects are concerned and because we’re still suffering
from the wave of 2009. But definitely we’re seeing a lot of
interest.” She says pipelines are now empty and the brands
are “desperate for innovation” for 2011 and 2012.
The structure of Intercos consists of an Italian corporate
company serving major units in Europe, Asia and the U.S.
The corporate company contains the innovation and
creative services. “This allows the three other international
operating units to be fast and to take care of the local
market, to service the customer the best way possible in
terms of sales and marketing,” says Dario.
“The corporate [unit] has the task to understand
the market, make the strategy and develop the product,
to know about the U.S., Asia, Europe—three different
markets, three different needs, different attitudes in terms
of the consumer, in terms of the distribution, in terms of
the customer.”
There are five business units within corporate that
are linked to Dario’s thinking on innovation and market
needs. He gives directions on a weekly or monthly basis.
Then, either Arabella gets involved on the marketing side
or Madina on the trend side. “We interpret what [Dario]
says and make it an operation and develop it,” Arabella says,
adding that she also is the link to the R&D department.
The biggest unit is basic color cosmetics. The other four are:
special makeup effects, which includes products with a particular
visual impact; Interfila, the pencil division, of which Gianandrea
is sales and marketing manager; skin care, also run by Dario,
and private label, driven by another family member, Matteo
Milani, who is Intercos Europe sales and marketing director.
The artistic cutting edge is supplied by Madina, Intercos
creative director, who previously worked in production at
Milan’s famed La Scala theater and spends months scouring
cultural capitals. As soon as she is finished putting the
finishing touches on one year’s trend forecast, she is off to
Paris, New York, London and Berlin to begin the next. “In
July, I present to the marketing people in Intercos the new
concept and they say, ‘Yes, no, this is OK, we prefer that….’ ”
“Madina, for us, is the mirror of what’s going on in the
world in terms of fashion, trend, colors and bringing it all
in,” says Arabella, who is charged with translating the vision
to the R&D department. “They do their research part, and
they come with a product to us. However, they don’t speak
the same language as we do. We interpret this scientific
language and then [Madina] comes with her creative.”
The third vector of the equation is what brands want,
information that has been gleaned through constant
dialogue with clients about their customers. In addition,
Intercos gets direct consumer readings through its three
Madina Milano makeup stores. The company tries out
all of its new products on consumers, concentrating
on the “two souls” of Intercos—color and innovation.
“We’re selling product at a very competitive price to get
the customer in,” says Dario, “and then we try to sell the
innovation. It works incredibly well.”
This year’s trend presentation, dubbed Revolution, had a
solid focus on product innovation. “We need to move away
from market needs to revolution,” says Arabella, during a
recent walk-through.
The skin care section focused on luminosity, using
new films and pure pigments to capture light and create
smooth textures and flawless finishes. The twist was
treatment-infused color novelties, offering advanced and
targeted corrective solutions for all age ranges. Powders
had ceramiclike qualities, yet once applied, offered
comprehensive coverage, a porcelain finish and enhanced
emollient qualities.
Intercos has also harnessed a sugar-based technology to
create new high-shine films for products such as lipstick,
which, when crystallized, create reflective surfaces offering
long-lasting adhesion and glossy finishes.
A patented fourth-generation polymer is the company’s
biggest breakthrough this season. A liquid film sets to
form an acrylic texture and is said to offer highly refractive
coverage for up to 24 hours. Prisma Shine eye shadows
offer 16-hour coverage, dubbed Tech Shine, that creates
a spongy form and is meant to offer a new glossy take
on powder-finish eye shadows. Interfila showcased new
corrective pencils with line-filler properties.
Elsewhere, four themed rooms were designed to enable
visitors to understand the creative process behind the science
with artful displays, underlining four main concepts—Tonic
Turbulence, showcasing high-voltage color; Naïve Nature,
offering a feminine whimsical mood; Avant Garde,
showcasing androgynous and unconventional texture and
packaging, and Modern Modesty, blending utilitarian,
pared-down product with an emphasis on quality.
Although the presentation was as creatively arresting as
ever, for his part, Dario says he has mellowed since the early
days of Intercos, when it was a fledgling spin-off from his
mother’s Swiss skin care company, which is now part of the
corporate group. In those days, he seemed to play the role
of chairman to the utmost, from the charm of Frank Sinatra
to the finality of Mao.
“For many years, especially when the company was
smaller, all the decisions were made by me,” he says. “I
knew the company, I knew the business, I knew the people.”
Now, though, the operation has become more open.
“It’s the difference between China and India,” Dario says.
“In China, they go fast because one guy makes a decision.
India is a democracy and they have to fight inside. We have
been China for quite a long time—now we would like to
become a little more like India. The company is growing,
I’m getting old and I need to put in place people who can
help me run the company. Making decisions is the key of a
fast-growing company. Better you make a wrong decision
than not to make a decision.”
Perhaps he spends time thinking about something
other than the next makeup launch. “I have three passions,”
says the man who also owns homes in Saint Moritz and
Portofino: “sailing, collecting paintings and playing chess.”
“Madina, for us, is the mirror of
what’s going on in the world in
terms of fashion, trend, colors and
bringing it all in,” says Arabella,
who is charged with translating
the vision to the R&D department.
 AN ARTFUL LIFE: INSIDE THE
FERRARI’S MILAN TOWN HOUSE.

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