The fashion system’s spotlights are on the Kering-owned Italian brand, whose future path designed by new creative director Sabato De Sarno will finally be unveiled tomorrow at his debut for Gucci at Milan Fashion Week.
After parting ways with its former creative director Alessandro Michele last November and its CEO Marco Bizzarri in July, the €10.5 billion company is ready to begin a new era.
De Sarno's background and his vision for the brand
A graduate of Milan’s Istituto Secoli, with stints at Prada and Dolce & Gabbana before a decade-plus run at Valentino, De Sarno has been in fashion for 20 years, but prior to Gucci he worked behind the scenes and he was comfortable there. “This is a very new moment for me, I’m a dreamer, but honestly I’ve never dreamed of something like this” said De Sarno in an exclusive interview with vogue last week.
First of all, De Sarno is a name perhaps new to the public but fairly well known to insiders: in fact, the designer is a veteran of Valentino, a brand for which he has held positions of increasing prominence over the past 13 years (practically an eternity in the fashion world) culminating in his appointment as Fashion Director of the brand's men's and women's ready-to-wear collections some two years and seven months ago. This enormous amount of experience specific to the world of Valentino must not have gone unnoticed by Gucci's top management at all, as they could really leverage this to reinvent Gucci and return to the exponential market growth the brand witnessed a few years back.
De Sarno was hired to “write Gucci’s next chapter, reinforcing the house’s fashion authority while capitalizing on its rich heritage." The word the designer uses for his take on Gucci is 'Italianity'. In the same interview, he mentioned that Gucci is a very Italian brand with a huge heritage. Italian in craftsmanship, Italian in taste, and something, that in his opinion, is lost. His mission is to bring this back, concurring with the fact that Italianity is a part of his story too.
In one line, he basically wants people to fall in love with Gucci again.
The word ‘ancora’ is something the director has used for his show. The italian word is actually printed in a frame on the wall next to his desk. He also had it tattooed on his left arm after he got the Gucci job (on his right is an Ellsworth Kelly calla lily from when he was 18). In his own words, he says that ancora means a lot of things, but most importantly, for him, it doesn't mean something you lost, it’s something that you still have, but you want more of it because it makes you happy. (Vogue, September 2023)
The recent campaign and what it hinted at
Recently, a small taste of the brand’s fresh aesthetic came from the new creative director. The path taken by the brand seems to want to declare that the time for a decisive creative breakthrough has come: this summer De Sarno sent the web into a tailspin by wiping all posts from the brand’s Instagram account but at the same time, they maintained a "recognizable Gucci aesthetic" while not committing "too much to any one direction." (The Impression industry publication)
By posting a sneak peek of Gucci's next campaign shot at the Chateau Marmont by David Sims and featuring the face of Daria Werbowy, the historic muse of Phoebe Philo's Céline, the brand has already been able to evoke an entire opulent and essential aesthetic together where the model is pictured poolside wearing nothing but a black GG swimsuit and statement gold jewellery. Of course, this isn’t the model’s first Gucci ad she previously fronted Tom Ford’s 2004 campaign for the Italian brand,” pointed out W magazine.
“Daria, we started together in this business in 2003, and here you are with me at the beginning of this new adventure,” De Sarno wrote as a caption to his IG post, referring to the 39-year-old Canadian-Ukrainian fashion queen who formally ‘retired’ in 2016.
The only photo we have seen of the campaign perhaps hints at the direction in which the brand will move but, in the absence of precise data or statements, we have only to proceed with theories. This is the designer’s first major advertising campaign for Gucci, something I felt after seeing it was that the lowkey feel of de Sarno’s visual is definitely more towards the sensual minimalism of maybe Ford than the extremist, non-minimalist of his predecessor, Alessandro Michele and that is a big shift.
In line with this, another interesting aspect is that this season’s Gucci show will not take place at the Gucci Hub, which is the headquarters on the edge of Milan opened in 2016. Instead, De Sarno has chosen the streets surrounding the Accademia di Brera, a historic fine arts university, where the designer imagines people lining the balconies to watch as the models walk by. Mark Ronson is the Gucci show’s official music director whose most recent work includes the Barbie soundtrack. All this just hints at a very interesting departure from the status quo and something worth witnessing.
The relevance of this show and the build-up so far
This show being one of the most highly-anticipated shows so far this year, is set to serve as an aesthetic rest for the brand and is aimed at changing the brand positioning for Gucci while also attempting to revive sales for the brand.
Gucci is the star kid of Kering, accounting for a bulk of sales and profits for the conglomerate and efforts to regain force at the label have also induced a change in the group’s top management. Group managing director Jean-Francois Palus is now stepping in to run the brand while the company seeks a more permanent replacement for chief executive Marco Bizzarri, who leaves following De Sarno’s first show tomorrow.
Kering, broadly, has also taken certain steps to expand its revenue sources when it acquired a 30% stake in Valentino (which could translate into acquiring 100 per cent of its stock by 2028) as well as its strategic partnership with Mayhoola.
Although it was one of the biggest success stories in fashion in recent years, Kering's star label has struggled to capitalize on a post-pandemic rebound that fuelled surging sales at rivals, such as LVMH-owned Louis Vuitton and Dior. Fashion analysts have also noted that Gucci’s collections have been too ‘lazy’ and repetitive in recent years, leading to a decline in consumer interest and sales and causing some concern among investors. But things might change very soon. The group's chairman, Pinault, stressed the need to revitalize Gucci's growth trajectory and specifically the brand's top line by highlighting the goal of reaching 15 billion euros in revenues in the medium term compared to 10.5 billion euros in 2022. (CNBC 2022)
In the run-up to De Sarno's debut, executives at Gucci have been focused on timeless fashions and higher-priced products – and showcasing them in specialized shops catering to ultra wealthy clients – while increasing marketing and the number of collections. Gucci has also strengthened its presence in key markets through initiatives such as "Salon," exclusive spaces for customized luxury orders.
“We believe the quiet progress being made on product, price and merchandising sets the right foundation for Sabato De Sarno's new chapter at the brand,” said analysts at RBC, flagging company moves to reduce the label’s entry price offer while adding new products at higher prices.
Kering may need to invest more to catch up with rivals like LVMH and Hermes, potentially prompting a revision of margin expectations, analysts say. “We don’t think that a margin reset would be badly received by the market,” said Carole Madjo, analyst with Barclays.
I really feel that Sabato's new design style will be key to reigniting the brand heat, not only for drawing shoppers into boutiques and increasing sales but to also serve as a template to follow as the brand attempts to strategically change the brand positioning of Gucci and place it in the timeless category, following suit of other brands from the Kering stable such as Saint Laurent and Bottega Veneta.
- Naina Khurana, President Luxury Club IMB 5
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