'- While in the business field, Brunello Cucinelli understood that coloured cashmere could represent a revolutionary step in the fashion field. So, in 1974 he gave up his engineering course at university to dedicate himself to the business that would make him famous in just a few years.
- Towards the end of the 1990s, Brunello Cucinelli opened single-brand boutiques in various cities: Milan, New York, Moscow, Paris, London, Brussels, Tokyo, Los Angeles, Sydney, as well as many shop-in-shop outlets in the most famous department stores around the world.
- In 1985 Brunello Cucinelli bought the fourteenth-century castle in Solomeo, a tiny hamlet close to Perugia. This is where Federica Benda, who was to become Cucinelli’s wife, lives. He moved the offices of his cashmere company to Solomeo and immediately understood that this tiny and almost desolate huddle of houses is rich in history, art and landscaping beauty.
- In 1988 he was made an ‘academic’ of the Istituto di Belle Arti Pietro Vannucci in Perugia.
- In 2003 he was recognised as a Homo faber – Homo poeticus by the Accademia Biella Cultura; and in the same year he received a ‘Best of the Best’ award in the United States, given only to the most outstanding companies in the world.
- In 2004 the Robb Report in the magazine Luxury Lifestyle assigned Brunello Cucinelli the ‘Best of the Best’ award for the second year running, with the justification that he is the “best and most sophisticated designer in the world in the sector of cashmere sportswear”.
- In 2009 he received the award Imprenditore Olivettiano, the Best of the Best from the American review Robb Report as “new guide for the men sportwear”, the Entrepreneur of the Year Award Ernst &Young, the award Leonardo Qualità Italia.
- Following many years’ impassioned study, the idea of a larger scale work was born in 2000. Just behind Solomeo’s historic centre has begun the construction of the Forum of the Arts, which is being inaugurated with the Teatro Cucinelli. The Forum is a structured entity in which buildings and open spaces are organically connected to one another to create an aesthetic and functional whole. The construction of the extraordinarily elegant and well-proportioned theatre was inspired by the late-Renaissance plans of the theatres in Sabbioneta and Farnese di Parma. Standing slightly higher up the hill, the large Amphitheatre will host outdoor and cultural events.
