Women's Lifestyle April 14, 2026 0 Comments

Brunello Cucinelli’s Surprising Secret That Could Revolutionize Your Wellness Routine – Are You Ready to Unlock It?

Ever wandered into a library so ancient that the scent of old leather and parchment practically hugs you like an old friend? Well, I found myself pretty much tongue-tied stepping into Rome’s Biblioteca Angelica—one of Europe’s first public libraries, quietly tucked away since 1604. Now, here’s a cheeky thought for you: in an age dominated by digital everything, what could a dusty old book possibly teach us about success, life, and maybe even serenity? Turns out, quite a lot. Inspired by Brunello Cucinelli, the “philosopher king of fashion” whose story unfolds like a rich tapestry woven through his new docufilm, I’m diving headfirst into a world where cashmere meets contemplative wisdom—and yes, where the weight of paper still carries the heft of knowledge in ways screens just can’t mimic. So, if you’ve got seven minutes to spare (trust me, it’s worth it!), come along for a journey that’s as soft as the finest knit but packed with powerful lessons on legacy, life, and what success really means. Ready to be surprised? Let’s get stuck in. LEARN MORE

7 min read

Derek C. Blasberg

The author at the Biblioteca Angelica in Rome.

Welcome to The Dispatch, a column by Derek C. Blasberg featuring a mix of interviews and reports from the front rows of the worlds of culture, art, and fashion.

In 1604, Angelo Rocca—Augustinian bishop, humanist scholar, and first head of the Vatican printing house—founded one of Europe’s first public libraries, the Biblioteca Angelica, in Rome. From the street, it looks like a nondescript building tucked beside the Basilica of Sant’Agostino, a small church famous for housing a Caravaggio painting of the Madonna and Child greeting barefoot pilgrims. But past a turnstile in its fluorescent-lit entryway and up a flight of worn-in wooden stairs, the view is awe-inspiring. Soaring walls of antiquated texts rise in tiered, intricately carved bookshelves, and the air is rich with the unmistakable odor of weathered leather and parchment. Ah, yes—the sweet scent of literature.

It’s early December, and I’m here by myself. A kind librarian explains that in an era when books were locked behind church doors, opening a library to anyone who could read was a revolutionary act. In broken Italian, I sweet-talk her into letting me hold an early edition of Dante’s Inferno, flipping through its thin, yellowed, crisp pages—a reminder that before screens and servers, knowledge lived in the weight of paper, ink, and delicately hand-painted gilding.

I’ve been a tourist in Rome at least a dozen times and feel like I’ve barely scratched its travertine surface. I’d never even heard of this library! The insider tip came from a man who knows a thing or two about books: Brunello Cucinelli. It was he who suggested I visit Biblioteca Angelica while I was in town for the premiere of Brunello: The Gracious Visionary, a new docufilm—part documentary, part scripted—that traces his life from his days working on the family farm in rural Umbria to his emergence as a luxury fashion pioneer whose exquisitely crafted cashmere knits and soft tailored pieces have become shorthand for a kind of modern refinement.

Courtesy Stefano Schirato

Brunello Cucinelli in the new film Brunello: A Gracious Visionary.

The film premiered at a black-tie gala at Rome’s legendary Cinecittà Studios, where filmmakers like Federico Fellini, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, and Martin Scorsese have made cinematic history. (La Dolce Vita, Cleopatra, and Gangs of New York were all shot there.) Giuseppe Tornatore, the Oscar-winning director of Cinema Paradiso, collaborated with Cucinelli on this film, which blends archival footage with dramatic reenactments. The 72-year-old designer’s rags-to-riches, crops-to-cashmere life story is framed around a symbolic card game—fate, time, and work dealt out hand to hand.

After the screening, a legion of guests that included Jessica Chastain, Jeff Goldblum, Ava DuVernay, and a constellation of Italian cultural heavyweights strolled through Cinecittà’s back lot, which features a sweeping re-creation of an ancient Roman forum. (Remember HBO’s Rome series? I was obsessed. It was also filmed at Cinecittà!) We sat at a candlelit dinner and watched as paccheri con sugo—Cucinelli’s favorite pasta—was prepared live and served al dente. All around us were walls and towers constructed from—you guessed it—books. In total, there were more than 100,000 of them, many from Cucinelli’s personal library in Solomeo, a tiny hill town not far from where he grew up in Castel Rigone. Cucinelli has invested millions to turn Solomeo into a cultural jewel devoted to craftsmanship, education, and humanistic ideals.

“The MESSAGE this MOVIE wants to CONVEY is that if you just LIVE your LIFE, perhaps you might bump into SUCCESS too.”—Brunello Cucinelli

Reading is more than a leisurely pastime for Cucinelli; it’s a lifestyle. Often referred to in Italy as “the philosopher king of fashion,” he is prone, even in casual conversation, to literary thoughtfulness and reflection. He uses a metaphor of Michelangelo carving David from a block of marble to describe what it was like to watch Tornatore make Brunello: The Gracious Visionary.

“Nice to see you, Mr. Cucinelli,” I say days after the premiere, when I come to thank him for his Rome recommendations and talk about his new film.

“No, no,” he says, waving his hands. “My name is Brunello.”

So what’s the deal with all the books, Brunello?

“Remember the scene [in the movie] where my uncle gives me the book by Socrates? I still have this book at home,” he says. “His book. And it’s all highlighted, underscored. I can still feel and see my uncle. He was a heavy smoker, and I still sometimes smell the smoke on the pages.”

Cucinelli is not someone who spent his childhood dreaming of becoming a fashion designer. In the film, he is depicted as an adolescent daydreamer who goes on to spend most of his early 20s buzzing around on a Kawasaki motorbike and playing cards with friends in a local bar. He does a brief stint at university (“I only sat for one exam in three years”), plays Jesus in a local production that has him hanging from a cross in the town square, and works as a hair model for salons while searching for opportunities to build something meaningful for himself. Finally, a brush with entrepreneurship: He figures out how to create a special kind of colored cashmere. That leads him to launch his own business, which is how Brunello Cucinelli, the fashion brand, was born.

Courtesy Brunello Cucinelli

The author with Princess Olympia of Greece (left) and Poppy Delevingne at the film’s premiere at the legendary Cinecittà Studios.

That company, which Cucinelli founded in 1978, has brought him extraordinary wealth and opportunity. But while Cucinelli’s day job for the past 48 years has been running a global luxury fashion empire, he always knew he had a greater mission, which he connects back—appropriately—to philosophy.

“Some 2,000 years ago, the emperor Augustus founded Roman law on three basic tenets,” Cucinelli says. “Live with honesty, do not harm anyone, and to each their own.”

Those tenets, Cucinelli explains, have been his guiding lights—in business and in life. However, he is not so sure that modern society still holds them as dearly as he does. The current state of the world—from global conflicts to the pressures that younger generations now face—is what ultimately inspired him to make this movie. “The world is struggling from the point of view of the human soul, especially young people,” he says. “You have to come out reassured, reenergized about reality, about life,” he explains. “My father, my grandfather, they went to war, yet they never spoke to me about the war. They only talked about providence! New generations must replace fear with hope.”

“I believe that if you BEHAVE well in LIFE, something DIFFERENT awaits YOU.”—Brunello Cucinelli

With the help of a translator, I try to explain to Cucinelli the meaning of the English term wanderlust. There isn’t a clear translation in Italian—voglia di viaggiare is the desire to travel; irrequietezza is a restlessness of the soul—but Cucinelli knows what I’m talking about. “Fifteen-year-olds, they’re supposed to know already which kind of school they need to go to, what kind of life or kind of path is for them,” he says. “The message this movie wants to convey is that if you just live your life, perhaps you might bump into success too.” True to form, he pauses briefly to consider what he’s just said. “But then again, what is success?” he asks. “It is living in serenity.”

Making Brunello: The Gracious Visionary was a form of catharsis for Cucinelli—in particular, filming the reenactments, which proved especially emotional. Cucinelli occasionally enters these scenes himself and speaks directly to the camera. Many of them were even shot in the exact house where he grew up. “There’s someone playing my father, myself as a child, the cows!” he says. “I step into this kitchen—my kitchen, in the house where I lived for 15 years—and there they are around the table having dinner, calling themselves by their names. Our names! I thought I would faint.”

Courtesy Stefano Schirato

Cucinelli in Brunello: A Gracious Visionary.

Though Tornatore repeatedly offered to show Cucinelli footage, he didn’t want to see the film until it was done. He couldn’t sleep the night before he watched it for the first time, and he showed up at a screening room prepared to compile a list of changes. (As a producer, he could have requested special edits.) To his surprise, though, he didn’t have any. “I went back to the hotel and I cried my eyes out,” Cucinelli recalls. No notes, as the kids say.

In 2021, Cucinelli appeared at the G20 Summit—the annual gathering of the world’s most powerful economic leaders—and closed his speech with a plea that sounded more like a prayer than a policy directive: “Temporary guardians of creation, you who are responsible for the beauty of the world, please show us the way to life.”

Cucinelli is putting his money—and his business—where his mouth is. His revitalization of Solomeo began in the mid-1980s when he bought and restored a 14th-century castle in the center of town and transformed it into his company’s headquarters. Over the past four decades, he and his wife, Federica, who was born and raised there, along with their daughters, Camilla and Carolina, have continued to invest in the life of the village, the preservation of its heritage, and the future of the community.

It’s this work in particular that has helped him define what legacy means to him. “Federica and I, we decided to buy this property and restore it when it was really run down, just to leave something behind,” he says. “But are you an owner or a guardian of your assets when you are alive? I think that we are guardians—temporary guardians,” he explains. “I’d like to be remembered as a guardian who tried to improve even just a little part of the world,” he says. “I believe that if you behave well in life, something different awaits you. And if this turns out not to be true, you will have lived better anyway.”