Renzo Rosso is many things—father, entrepreneur, Italian, fashionista, self-made, vintner, cultural detonator, advocate, and arbiter of bravery. Here he sits atop South Beach’s Pelican Hotel on the occasion of Miami Art Basel, celebrating a 30 year anniversary of the boutique Art Deco property he purchased when Miami was considered an oozy blister on the boot heel of the USA. Yesterday, he attended the famous art fair. Tonight, he’ll greet musical heavy hitters Gunna and Swae Lee, among others, to toast the Pelican anniversary, along with a couple years’ long renovation of every room, and the conversion of its owner’s suite into a sexy speakeasy. Tomorrow, he’ll go to LA to site visit and market assess and have lunch with Mike Amiri, of whose eponymous fashion line he holds a minority stake. 

Miami Beach, then, is many things—a playpen of preposterousness and pleasure where body worship, fried plantains, sparkling McLarens, Ferraris, e-bikes and rollerblades, towering luxury hotels and residencies, the odd humidity index of 90%, banyan trees, bathwater warm Atlantic shore-lap, and the sweet aroma of Cuban cigars all collide in a destination climate scholars ascribe, ironically, as having the strongest potential of any cosmopolitan area worldwide to soon sink into the sea.

What do Rosso and Miami Beach have in common? Well, that’s rather easy. It’s in the warm weight of the air as it kisses the swaying palms and wild columbines. It’s in the bulbous expansion of luxury fashion and jewelry and hoi polloi across the causeway on the mainland. It’s in the unparalleled nightlife that sees revelers greet the sunrise routinely, as if it were a many years friend. Frankly, it’s in the brazen and brave approach to each day, squeezed of every drop and lived to its maximum, as if it all stands to slip into the sea on a second’s notice. Rosso’s holding group, OTB, presides over fashion brands Diesel (his baby and, like your writer, now figuring it all out in its 40s), Maison Margiela, Marni, Viktor & Rolf, Jil Sander, Staff International, Brave Kid, and has a minority share in the aforementioned Amiri. He’s also piloted real estate ventures and agricultural commodities, published books, restored a Venetian bridge, and participates in robust philanthropy. The guy is a badass.

Built in 1948, the Pelican sits among a handful of hotels on Miami’s ever-thrumming South Beach. From its Art Deco vantage points, an adorable little park and Miami’s own Muscle Beach sprawl across the white sand that separates it from the Atlantic, while tourists and locals soak up the sea, oil up the buns, and consider attending one of the nightlife bashes advertised on the banners billowing behind the little cargo planes up above that trek up and down the fabled coast all day long.

Today, as we enjoy the shadow play of the light with the many plants that line the Pelican’s rooftop, we’re going to chat about what compelled Rosso to a rather hasty acquisition of the hotel, the boom of Miami as not just a party spot but a place to live, the imperative of life’s highs and lows, and how sometimes less is not only more, but sweeter, like the citrus that hails from this unequivocal southernmost united state of extremes.

We’re sat on the rooftop of the Pelican Hotel—your hotel. Why is this place so special to you?

For me, this place is special for many reasons. In the 1990s, when I arrived here, it was really nothing. The street was rundown. It was full of old people coming here to pass away. I was impressed by the contrast between these people, the destroyed buildings, and the beautiful models on the beach that came for photoshoots. I was like, ‘Wow, what’s happening here?

I also met Gianni Versace at that time, and he said to me, ‘I love Deco.’ I said, ‘I love Deco too.’ And in 48 hours, I bought this building. When I went back, my people didn’t understand why, they said, ‘You’re crazy. Why’d you do this?’. And my people in New York claimed, ‘Miami is the most dangerous town that we have in the United States, and nobody goes there.’ I said, ‘Yeah, but it’s so beautiful. Believe me, you will see that it’s going to change.’

What happened when your team finally accepted this was a real thing?

I spoke with my creative team at Diesel and they were like, ‘Wow.’ Everybody wanted to be involved. I told them, ‘You can be involved if you want, but we have to work together.’ In the end, everyone designed one room. So we had 28 different rooms. Every one was different, but the only thing in every room was a piece of deco furniture. We sent a guy from Sweden, Magnus, and he stayed here for three years as we finished. In the meantime, we were also having conversations with Mickey Rourke, because he was also interested in being part of this property. So the top floor— the penthouse— in the beginning was divided exactly down the middle. Half was supposed to be for him and half for me. But after we started, we didn’t agree on the way to do things, so in the end, I did it just by myself.

So the Pelican DNA was unique from the beginning?

I was in contact with the Ford Models Agency, and they decided to open an office in the building. So, on the first floor was a Ford Models Agency. Can you imagine? People coming here to have a coffee, seeing Naomi Campbell, and all these beautiful people. Within the first 10 years, Pelican became one of the best 50 boutique hotels in the world. We have so many customers. Even this morning, there was a guy that came to me and said, ‘I’ve been coming to your hotel since 1994 and have been coming every year since.’ It’s a hotel that is very well known worldwide. The food is still excellent, the inside is beautiful, and now we have completed the renovation which started a few years ago. My son Andrea helped me a lot to do this. And I really like it. The rooms are so beautiful because every one of them is made with a hundred percent vintage furniture. So the deco is still alive.

Having a vision before something or somewhere is established is about instincts. Talk to me about your instincts with this property and how you relate to instincts?

I think everything that I have done in my life is through instincts. My company, Diesel—or even when I’m working on Margiela with John Galliano. I never work one single day of my life for money. I work because I love what we’re doing. If you’re doing well, money will come. It is with this same passion, the same attitude, the same vision, that I have been working with my team. And I think this is why OTB Group in general is a little bit special at the moment—different from the others. The last fashion week season—you almost didn’t feel the brands’ DNA anymore. Everybody doing the same thing, you know?

But when you come to see our shows, you can really feel every brand has a consistency. So me, I still work with the blood, the patience, and I’m working for the product. This is why I gained respect from the fashion industry. I think the last John Galliano show with Margiela was recognized by everybody in the world. It was like, ‘Oh, thank God someone started to think again’—how to make it broader, and not just entertainment, or making money. My skill, because I come from the product, is to work to make a beautiful product. And when I work on hotel properties, or any other business, it’s the same because every single thing is done with passion and love for the product.

What about the changes in Miami? What have you observed?

I saw this town change a lot. When I arrived, there was really nothing. Downtown didn’t exist. The Design District didn’t exist. If you speak with Craig Robins [CEO of Dacra Development, a real estate development company that played a crucial role in the transformation of the Miami Design District], he can tell you how important I was for him, because the first two brands in the Design District were Marni and Margiela. I am brave. I like to go into something that I believe in. Today there are many people moving to Miami from New York, LA, many places.

You hear this phrase, “experience economy,” which is often attributed to newer generations—persons are not as fixated on material procurement or material success, but having experiences traveling: hospitality, dancing, dining, etc. And the data suggests that more people are content to spend on experiences. What’s your interpretation of that? What’s driving that?

I think the younger generations, especially, they want to live more. With the digital world, you can have much more information and you want to see more things. That’s life. And life is so short—I think it’s nice to have the opportunity to live many things. I try to imagine when I was younger—we didn’t have WhatsApp, we didn’t have anything. We just sent letters. And letters arrived after two weeks. So today is really another life.

I love technology. I think technology can help everybody to live better. Technology, especially artificial intelligence now, can be fantastic. You can have more information. You can create better. You can achieve better numbers. Technology is a very big help for a better way to live. A better way to live means that you can work less and you can have more time.

There are certainly advantages to all our digital culture, but what about with entrepreneurship? What’s harder about entrepreneurship today?

This is the difficult thing because so many people are not really into this new life. Thank God, I have seven children and they constantly give me a new vision, a new way to talk, new music, new sports, a new attitude. They’re really training me, educating me, you know? If you stay all day inside your company to run your business soon the business could be gone. You can see how many companies went down because they needed to invest in technology. Technology and sustainability are the two things that companies need in this moment to be big pillars for driving the brands and the industry.

Let’s talk a little bit about sustainability, which is of course a big aspect of the contemporary discussion. How do you define success in the space versus “greenwashing”?

I like to say that I was born in a farm. The education of my parents, of my father, was to be positive with the people. With this attitude, I work with my people in the team, in the company, we share many things with them, and when sustainability was really starting to be talked about seriously in the world, I thought, ‘Okay, this is not enough.’ So I took all my managers— first level, second level—to Bocconi, the Italian university, to take lessons on how to run business in a sustainable way. Because sustainability cannot be just one recycled fabric, you know, the ‘green wash.’ I want it to be a state of mind. Everything that my people do, they have to think in a sustainable way: close your computer. Close your light. Don’t print so much paper. Use the fabric, not the chemical things.

And also, sustainability is not only how to do the collections. Sustainability is also how you work with people. We have done an audit of all companies that are working for us. We talked with the employees. We want to see if they are paid regularly and correctly, the conditions in which they work, the hours, the timing, everything. This is also sustainability. Now we have a QR code in our products that is more advanced compared with other brands. In our QR code you can start to see all the things that we’re doing in sustainability. I hope in one more year, or two, you can see everything to the core—from the fabrics, all the process. This is the way that I want to run my brands, because the new generations pay attention to what is going on.

You know, my generation has destroyed the world. We took advantage of the world. But now intelligent people started to work for its recovery. Diesel, already this year, is 53% sustainable. Our core product, denim, is 75% sustainable. 90% less water is used when we wash. So I am very, very happy. We signed The Fashion Pact with a group of fashion brands from all over the world to be 100% decarbonized by 2030.

When we look back, we have a lot more clarity on the past. What advice might you offer yourself 30 years ago, knowing what you know now?

I think every decade you have to change your attitude, you have to change the way you live, you have to change the way you think. You have to change many things, how to run the industry, how to live your social life. The only things that, for me, stayed before and still stays today—and the only thing that I really always say when I talk with young people—is if you want to be successful, you have to feel the moment in which you live. You have to experience the lows. When you are younger, you have to make some mistakes, you have to suffer. Success doesn’t come for free. 

And one more thing—working in creativity—it’s not important how big you are. What is really important is that you are happy. What stays over the years? It is creativity, patience, suffering, and really, desire and positivity.

With so many different experiences in your life over the years, how would you say you’ve come to define the word “lifestyle”?

When I was younger, it was more real. Now it is a bit more superficial, because we have much more. But, you know, when you have much more, maybe you don’t have the time to live things. Now you go to one party, and after another— in the same night you can go to 10 parties. But if you go to just one, maybe you enjoy it more. Otherwise, you’re running just to see different things. It was a little bit better when I was younger because it was less. And with less, you were a little bit more happy.

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Photographed by Daniel Zuliani.

Written by Matthew Bedard