Gucci: The Show Must Go On
And new Marco Bizzarri Ventures, some highlights from Fashion Weeks and Tips for Talents
Gucci is under the spotlight since when Alessandro Michele and Marco Bizzarri left the boat respectively in November 2022 and September 2023.
The huge success the brand recorded from 2015 to the pandemic in 2020 is a case history.
Then something happened inside the golden couple, maybe Alessandro Michele was unwilling and unable to update his style and taste to the fast changing social media era.
Maybe Marco Bizzarri had the pressure to continue to grow the revenues and knew that it was impossible given the fact that the short cycle of growth boom was a once off and not repeatable.
What made them successful turned the brand into a company in big trouble.
And not all that glittered was gold.
It turned to be the opposite for a brand that today is heavily struggling in a depressed global economic situation that includes wars, terrorism, China slowdown and a general customer fatigue and with an important problem of identity and cultural relevance.
In July 2023 Jean-Francois Palus, right hand of Francois-Henry Pinault but mostly focused and specialized in finance, joined Gucci as its CEO, in January 2023.
Sabato de Sarno a designer who worked with Pierpaolo Piccioli at Valentino was appointed Gucci Creative director.
The new management is on board since more than a year, De Sarno presented its first Gucci collection one year ago but the situation seems to be very serious and no clear sign of recovery is in sight. Despite some kind of reassuring statements from some analysts that very likely need to keep calm those who have believed in them and invested huge sums of money on Kering stocks.
Bloomberg highlighted that this year the brand could lose 1 billion euro in revenues.
The supply chain has slowed down dramatically, the stores are showcasing De Sarno products in a very frugal and unappealing way: two days ago I was in Florence and visited the Gucci historical store in via Tornabuoni and the windows were very meager just displaying a couple of bags, Bamboo clearly with a light blue background and no excitement.
Nobody is excited nor convinced about De Sarno creative direction, so what stops Kering from admitting the mistake and changing course of the brand before it’s too late?