Explorers, creatives and students at the Palazzo Vecchio turned luxury towards legacy for a new generation.
On November 12th, in the chambers of Florence’s Palazzo Vecchio, the Salone dei Cinquecento was animated by purpose as the first Stefano Ricci Explorer Symposium gathered curious young minds and storied explorers.
“I think the most important thing you can do with your life, apart from family and love, is travel, meet new people, see this rich world we live in, because life is short and the world is so rich,” said legendary photographer Steve McCurry.
Florence’s Mayor Sara Funaro, National Geographic Society’s Chief Engagement Officer Alexander Moen, Stefano Ricci, his sons CEO Niccolo Ricci and Creative Director Filippo Ricci, joined McCurry to speak on the enduring power of exploration. Archaeologist Dr. Zahi Hawass invoked the eternal gaze of Egypt’s desert tombs, Moen charted the terrain between innovation and endurance.
Hope for the future?
Students and local luminaries mingled with the field’s heavyweights: McCurry, whose lens has depicted the soul of nations, photographer Andy Mann of oceanic advocacy; and Terry Garcia, President of Exploration Ventures, who declared that this new age of exploration “promises to be the greatest in human history.”
Whether driven by rigorous research or arresting storytelling, exploration remains a pillar of human progress. For Moen, the National Geographic Society’s support for explorers in more than 140 countries also raises the inevitable question: who will inherit this mantle?
It is a generation inheriting crises “threatening our oceans, lands, wildlife and even human cultures.” Yet Moen’s message was defiantly optimistic. “Hope is not a passive feeling,” he said, paraphrasing the late Jane Goodall. “It is an action – fuelled by the indomitable human spirit, the resilience of nature, and, crucially, the education of young people.”
SR Explorer’s latest mission: Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego
What, then, has any of this to do with a Florentine menswear house serving the global 0.01%? For Stefano Ricci, a family-run label, the SR Explorer programme reframes the brand as a curator of adventures recast through the lens of masculine style. The symposium underscored this instinct. McCurry, recalling his shoots for the brand in India and Cambodia, spoke on how craftsmanship connected cultures.
In truth, geographic daring has long been woven into its identity. Founder Stefano Ricci opened his first international store in 1993 in Shanghai, a move setting a global trajectory. Since then, expansion has ranged from enduring luxury capitals to emerging markets like the Philippines, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and Cambodia.
The Stefano Ricci Explorer program is the brand’s most ambitious narrative vehicle: a series of cinematic expeditions that propel the Florentine house far beyond the atelier. Each “mission” places the Ricci team in remote terrain: from Mongolia’s steppe to the Andean heights of Peru, where campaigns, look-books and short films are created. The concept is part fashion, part anthropology. Landscapes, local craftsmanship, characters and materials, all folded back into the design story.
For FW 2026/27, the project ventured into Chile’s Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego in pursuit of what Filippo Ricci described as “extreme photographs in extreme landscapes.” Andy Mann, the National Geographic veteran behind the lens, captured the collection against jagged peaks, vast glacial lakes and blue-ice fields.
“Nature is the artist,” said Mann, “if I’m doing my job correctly, I’m letting her do all the speaking…Stories should come through me, not from me. At National Geographic, it’s our job to give a voice to the voiceless. But here, Chile had a voice and she was loud and clear everyday.”
Behind the images
Beyond the cinematic sweep lies something more deliberate. At each mission site, the Ricci Foundation donates to local organisations supporting ecosystems and communities: Peru’s Centro de Textiles Tradicionales de Cusco, India’s Centre for Wildlife Studies, the Charles Darwin Foundation in the Galápagos.
The message was clear: true luxury carries responsibility; and exploration demands a measure of reverence. As the ancient marble floors of the Salone dei Cinquecento quieted at dusk, it was possible to imagine just that.
