The rise and fall of the fashion House of Gucci

For 100 years, Gucci has been synonymous with heritage, craftsmanship and innovation. Since 1921, Gucci has given the world luxury Italian fashion but the House of Gucci has been a house divided. 

Internal power struggles fuelled by family politics, as portrayed in Ridley Scott’s 2021 film House of Gucci, tell as story of passion, love, loathing, tragedy and murder. Heirs to the Gucci brand — children and grandchildren of founder Guccio Gucci — spent years fighting for control of the brand with different visions in mind.   

By 1990, the House of Gucci had almost been torn apart at the hands of the Gucci family. But the revival of Gucci is one of fashion’s most powerful comeback stories.

But first, a look back …

It’s 1897 and Guccio Gucci moves from Florence, Italy, to London, England, where he works as a “liftboy” at the aristocratic Savoy Hotel. Inspired by the luggage of the hotel’s sophisticated guests, Gucci dreams of creating magnificent pieces of his own design.

In 1921, Gucci opens his first shop in Florence. It combines Tuscan craftsmanship with the refined taste  of English aristocrats. His vision for Gucci as a family business is to sell luggage to American tourists and European travellers.

Initially, Gucci juggles selling imported luggage and leather goods produced in his own small workshop.

In 1935, the invasion of Ethiopia by Benito Mussolini has lead to a trade embargo on Italy, according to AJ Barker, author of The Civilizing Mission: A history of the Italo-Ethiopian War. This pushes Gucci to explore other fabrics besides leather, such as wood, wicker, linen and jute.

The first Gucci handbag is launched in 1937 in Gucci’s trademarked style — cuoio grasso — a leather-tanning technique.

“Cuoio grasso was first used for tack and saddles, best for soft, smooth and flexible leather and resistant to scratches. The finished product is distinctly Gucci,” says Rachel Koffsky, vice president of handbags and accessories at Christie’s Auction House.

As the brand’s first creative director, the legacy of Guccio Gucci is always in plain sight. The history of Gucci can be conveyed through signature symbols, motifs and styles.  

During the “Guccio era”, leather trunks feature a motif of a liftboy holding two pieces of luggage, a  “proud reference to Guccio Gucci’s former occupation”, says Koffsky.

During these early days, Guccio produces two sons, Rodolfo and Aldo. The latter would grow up to have more involvement in the business and product development. Each son inherits 50% of the Gucci brand when their father dies in 1953.

A house divided

In Italian family businesses, it is believed, the first generation creates, the second expands and the third destroys. That’s almost the story of Gucci, says Sara Forden, author of the book The House of Gucci.

The 2021 film of the same name shows audiences the conflicts in the third generation: Paolo and Maurizio Gucci, who had unequal shares and control in the business.

Aldo’s sons, Giorgio and Roberto, each have a 23.3% share of their father’s 50% of Gucci, whereas the third son, Paolo, only has a 3.3% share. This is after helping to send his father to prison for tax fraud in the US in 1987. Their cousin Maurizio Gucci inherits 50% of the business from his father, Rodolfo, explains Forden.  

“It was complicated because there was a big conflict in the family. Aldo’s children felt their dad had done such a phenomenal job, which is true. Aldo was a pretty formidable person, but they felt they deserved more than a quarter of 50%,” Domenico de Sole, Rodolfo Gucci’s lawyer, told Bloomberg.

Despite the family drama, global recognition of Gucci rises, with stores opening in Japan and Hong Kong in the 1980s, says De Sole. Gucci is early in tapping into Asian markets which, today, keep the lights on for many luxury brands.

“The problem was the product was getting less attractive, they also expanded distribution dramatically. There are a lot of events that occur that show the brand was deteriorating,” says De Sole.

A lesson from luxury-brand history is the balance between brand value and revenue growth. As Gucci over-expands globally, it loses control of brand experience in the drive for international success. What makes Gucci valuable is price exclusivity and control of the customer experience, making people confident about what they’re buying in terms of product, service, and authenticity.

In 1989, Maurizio Gucci hires a new vice president and creative director, Dawn Mellow.

Mellow has a strategy — she closes most of Gucci’s brick-and-mortar stores to make the brand more exclusive. Then, she sets out to find fresh design talent.

She takes a chance on a young architecture graduate named Tom Ford, hiring him as a junior designer for the womenswear line in 1990. Just four years later, Ford is promoted to creative director. 

“I went to the Gucci office at that time and met with Dawn. I don’t believe I had a second meeting. Dawn liked me and I was hired. Three weeks later I moved to Milan,” recalls Ford in an interview with Vogue’s Hamish Bowles.

Tom Ford-era Gucci

In fashion, most credit goes to the creatives behind the designs customers see. But there are people behind the designers who create the business impact. The synergy between the creatives and management is essential for Gucci in the 1990s.

De Sole goes from being the brand’s lawyer to running Gucci US. Working with Ford, the “Tom-Dom” alliance formed in 1994.

The creative director takes advantage of this brief window in the history of Gucci, where the family-run business side of the brand was not looking over the shoulder of the creative side, Ford tells Vogue.

Clear from his first Fall 1995 show, there is a new Gucci in the air, as sales take off immediately, doubling from $263 million in 1995 to $500 million in 1996.

Ford brings unexpected sex appeal and glamour with his designs, a potent symbol of a new era in fashion. Gucci reclaims Italian fashion by supercharging old-school American glamour with in-your-face European sexiness and sensuality. 

The Fall 1995 collection shows jewel-toned satin shirts unbuttoned to the belly button, hip-slung velvet jeans and shaggy shearling coats for men and women. The seductive 1970s-inspired show was all about lighter, softer clothing as a second skin that showed the body.

“Velvet is my favourite fabric, it’s in every collection I do. I love the richness of velvet and the colour it takes,” recalls Ford in Vogue. “You can make a very simple shape in velvet, but when you touch it, there’s a richness to it.

“That collection was very unisex for me. You had men and women passing each other on the runway in the same suit and it was the literal late 70s collection,” he says.

Among the Fall 1996 show-stoppers are velvet suits and evening dresses, including the red velvet suit seen round the world when actress Gwyneth Paltrow wore it on the red carpet in 1996, a great moment for Ford’s Gucci.

“I found a box of photos of full movie stars wearing the scarves, carrying the bags, coming out of the shop,” recalls Ford. “At one point, this was the brand that all the celebrities wanted. How do I make it that again? And that was when I was really able to assert my own creative vision,” he tells Vogue. 

“What I hope I made Gucci into in the 1990s was a brand that was aspirational. For me, fashion has always been about what you wish your life could be and how you would love to see the world,” Ford said.

1997 is the year of the Gucci G-string. “There was a moment when I was sending this down the runway on both a girl and a guy,” says Ford. “A single spotlight shone on the runway. The G-string was black with a single metal ‘G’ logo glimmering against the models’ bare backs.”

Perhaps the secret of Gucci is the right thing at the right time, leading the way for contemporary fashion by holding a mirror to cultural zeitgeist. 

From Ford to Giannini

Ford leaves Gucci in 2004 and passes the baton to a young handbag designer, Frida Giannini, who serves as creative director from 2006 until 2015. In contrast to Ford’s hedonism, Giannini is an unremarkable designer but respects the brand’s heritage.

Giannini reintroduces Gucci’s former “la dolce vita” flavour of Italian fashion, making her popular with long-standing (and ageing) clientele who enjoy silk scarves, slim knitwear and Italian sophistication. Gucci conjures visions of the disco era and Giannini’s Spring 2015 collection reintroduces classics — the Bamboo Bag and the green-red-green stripe — with a psychedelic twist.

Giannini tells Dazed she is “in awe of [David] Bowie” and his most visionary decade, the 1970s, which she says is a “strikingly visual period”.

Her 1970s inspiration is on full display in her Fall 2014 show, with chunky tinted aviator sunglasses paired with shag coats, a uniform for retro Jimi Hendrix groupies.

“I am not a minimal person,” Giannini tells Dazed. “It’s a good thing in life — and especially in the industry — to not always do the same thing as other people.”

Her practical approach to traditional femininity cools down Gucci’s sexy image but is minimal enough for her successor to inject some fun back into Gucci after her departure in 2015.

Michele’s gender-blending 

Alessandro Michele hits the runway in 2015. The long-haired, eccentric Jared Leto-doppelganger designer is told to scrap Giannini’s final show and make something new, Gucci chief executive Marco Bizzarri tells The Business of Fashion.  

“Old things make me feel contemporary,” Michele says in The New York Times. “It’s that contradiction between the past and the future.”

This new era of Gucci is more diverse. It speaks to collab-chasing hypebeasts, funky space cowboys and artsy nerds who look like they stole their gran’s 1960s glasses (they’re just wearing Gucci Fall 2015).  

Michele sets himself apart from his predecessors by translating Gucci into a different language: “It’s time for this brand to tell another story. I’m changing everything.”

Michele’s Gucci makeover is not a hostile takeover but a humorous retelling of Gucci through a contemporary lens, exchanging ageing customers for a new type of consumer.

Under Michele, Gucci’s aesthetic shifts as seen in his debut Fall 2015 show: contrasting nudity with nerdy-chic and toning down the house’s uptight sophistication in exchange for youthful playfulness. Michele is speaking directly to fashion consumers under the age of 35.

The genius of Gucci lies in its ability to reinvent itself, even reinvent the sex of its times. Under Michele, Gucci’s flavour of sex is a gender-blending, non-binary type of sex that resonates with younger consumers and fashion lovers.

His 2017 Pre-Fall campaign stars black models only, speaking to a new era of black joy for the house. Dubbed Soul Scene, the campaign references “the spirit of England’s underground Northern Soul movement from the 60s and 70s”. Gucci’s small step in the right direction is refreshing.

While Ford’s legacy at Gucci is stamped by the red velvet suit, Michele brought the Gucci logo to the masses through belts, whereas Giannini’s quiet collections are sandwiched between the two mega legacies of Gucci designers. 

The Gucci universe

One of the most notable symbols in the Gucci universe is the “GG” monogram. The double G initials first appeared in the house’s 

1960s collections in homage to the brand’s founder. It is still seen across Gucci today.

“Pattern and repetition have always been important elements in the Gucci universe,” says Koffsky. “The 1950s saw the creation of the Gucci Rinascimento Motif, or ‘Gucci renaissance’, that was inspired by fresco paintings in 16th-century Rome.”

Not only do patterns and symbols become Gucci signatures, but so do colours — the green-red-green stripe — and accessories’ silhouettes.

The Bamboo Bag of 1947 came from exploring new materials. Craftsmen burn cane sticks over an open fire and mould the lightweight and durable bamboo into a curve, perfect for the handle of a bag with a bamboo turn-lock closure, according to Koffsky.

“An homage to Gucci’s equestrian-inspired heritage, the double ring and bar hardware is an icon that has lasted throughout decades,” says Koffsky. “First appearing in 1953, the horse bit travelled from loafer to handbag. Today it is one of the most recognisable symbols of luxury.”