Maybe we should have expected this from someone who has built their business on cashmere and other super-soft, swaddling fabrics, but I was still somewhat taken aback when Brunello Cucinelli, the Italian luxury lifestyle entrepreneur who began his €250m business hand-dyeing sweaters, told me yesterday that he was excited about his planned IPO in May because he wanted “investors who would help take care of the company into the future.”

He had children, he continued as we were looking at his A/W collection, and he was in his late 50s, and soon they would need partners that would walk alongside them and help them nurture their brand.This is, in my experience, not the view most brand executives take on the benefits of going to market. They usually get excited about opening multiple stores in Asia or something.

“Do you not think,” I ventured while flipping through the Fair isle knits with feathers, velvet trousers, and fur jackets, “that this expectation is a little romantic? What about investors who want to put their money in, make a profit, and take it out?”

“No!” he said. “I believe there will be a correction in the relationship between finance and industry. They have to grow together now.

“I am going to have,” he continued, smiling beautifically. “A soft IPO.” Then he reached out and stroked a sweater.