Walking down the street, I absentmindedly notice a lady with a beautiful bag studded with Gs. In an instant, I recognize the brand, but it immediately comes to mind how, in reality, the idea of Gucci in my head is not associated with the well-recognizable logo with the knotted double G but with Florence, Lady Gaga, Achille Lauro, and Harry Styles, singers I revere like deities. I think that the collaboration with international testimonials was certainly a shrewd and winning move in the brand’s renewal process. I reflect on what links that bag full of Gs to the feminine dress worn by Harry Styles on the latest Vogue cover.
At first glance, nothing. In reality, everything, if one considers that two such different and seemingly irreconcilable elements rest on a common base, namely Gucci. I reflect on what drove this change in trend, and the answer is simpler than expected: a drop in turnover, probably due to a style of the maison that made it classic and iconic but not competitive compared to what the fashion market offers now. It is clear that putting Alessandro Michele at the helm of the group was like winning the lottery.
Mr. Alessandro Michele: foresight, originality, and innovation
If foresight, originality, and innovation had a name, it would be his. Roman by birth, since January 2015, he has been the man who ignites the world’s runways with a style that has allowed the historic Italian maison to re-emerge in the fashion market with a completely renewed look. The designer’s signature, which has managed to relaunch the brand’s image, is based on an irreverent and passionate lexicon, capable of reconciling tradition and originality, promoting vintage-inspired garments able to maintain a formal coherence with the Florentine fashion house, without renouncing a contemporary mood.
Belonging to the Gucci team since 2002, as an accessories designer, allowed Michele to fully understand the brand, and the experience proved fundamental to deeply absorb not only its spirit but also its weaknesses, essential for success once he fully entered the creative direction of the brand. Under his guidance, the maison creates a collection completely different from the previous ones, almost overturned, and Gucci’s image benefits to such an extent that it manages to increase the company’s profit in a very short time.
The brand’s new stylistic signature becomes a mirror of Alessandro Michele’s creativity: stimulated by the art of his hometown and the impulses received within his family, the designer constantly re-proposes visual models recalling cinema and painting. Even his old passion, which would have liked to see him as a set designer, is not destined to fade, as demonstrated by the performative choice desired during the fashion shows.
Just think of the proposal adopted during Milan Fashion Week in 2018, when, in a historic city space, always used by Gucci for its shows, a huge operating room was set up. Illuminated by the cold neon lights typical of hospital corridors, the models parade among green-covered operating tables positioned on red carpets, recalling the iconic colors of the Florentine house, a choice that demonstrates the desire to modernize the lines of the new collection but confirms the link with the brand, which thus always appears recognizable.
In this sense, Michele chooses to have models parade with, in addition to the shocking cast of their faces, fantastic animals, including a striped snake, a distinctive image of the bags of that season, both to demonstrate stylistic coherence and to spectacularize reality, an intention that appears sublimated the following year at Alyscamps. To present Gucci’s 2019 Cruise Collection, Alessandro Michele decides to set the fashion show in a cemetery. And it is not just any cemetery, but the necropolis of Arles, a city of Roman foundation rich in history, a place chosen by the creative director to fulfill his dream of staging a fashion show in an archaeological site.
The mystical tone of the presentation, enhanced by a foggy atmosphere, is guaranteed by the choice of a classical soundtrack that involves the participants in a sort of theatrical piece. The Elysian Fields are the place destined to welcome the souls of heroes in Greco-Roman mythology, and that sense of solemnity is punctuated with every step of the models who parade with the grace and magnificence typical of illustrious figures, although it is difficult to imagine classical heroes dressed by Michele.
Immediately, the collections were in the spotlight, thanks to a successful marketing strategy that made it possible to open the universe of Gucci to social channels, and therefore, exclusive events could become available to a wider portion of the public. Apparently nothing revolutionary, but this new mode is certainly pleasing, and above all, it sells. And the intention to address an updated sphere sensitive to digital communication is demonstrated by the new project implemented by Alessandro Michele, GucciFest, an online fashion and film event, aimed at presenting the new collection, using a strategy never seen before: as if it were a miniseries, from November 16 to 22, the first episode of seven planned aired.
The regeneration of an iconic brand
Michele’s is a story worth analyzing as a corporate renewal process that has managed to make Gucci iconic again. He succeeded in the undertaking that, before his direction, had seemed unimaginable. Needless to hide that the Florentine fashion house, which had become synonymous with elegance and prestige, had suffered a setback, almost risking the bankruptcy of the 90s. The arrival of Tom Ford, who had given a first wave of regeneration to the brand, had not been enough to avert that climate of uncertainty in which the company then found itself under the guidance of Alessandra Facchinetti and Frida Giannini.
The experience in the Gucci team as an accessories designer allowed Michele to see firsthand that the growth of a brand on the market mainly passes through the sale of bags, belts, scarves, and shoes. Haute couture clothing gives visibility to the brand, but it is the accessories that are purchased, so much so that in the 2020 advertising campaign of #GucciGift, also visible on Instagram, extremely visible accessories in houndstooth wool with GG jacquard and sequins are presented, in perfect 90s style, in line with the shapes of the collection.
The ability to address a sophisticated but new audience, embracing a philosophy that puts at the center of attention a figure bearing values typical of a fluid and changing society, which does not formalize itself within pre-established statuses, which lives free from conditioning and which fights gender stereotypes, has been the key to the success of the new proposals. The stylistic revolution but, above all, Michele’s concrete sales perspective has ensured that Gucci returned to the center of the fashion market, guaranteeing itself a solid customer base worldwide.
Much less stereotyped but more commercial, advertised via social media, more accessible and contemporary than the old elitist and austere style, the new image of Gucci has managed to reconquer the Olympus of fashion.
share
