How a Little Italian Hotel Became a Global Fashion Brand

It started with a bathroom renovation.

In 2005, Marie-Louise Sciò, fresh out of studying architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design, had no ambitions to enter the hospitality business. But when her father, Roberto Sciò, asked her to remodel one of the washrooms at Il Pellicano — the mid-century hotel on the Argentario coast of Tuscany that he had owned since 1979 — she accepted the challenge.

“Then I really started getting into…