As the Italian luxury label celebrates a century of fashion highs, a Ridley Scott film starring Lady Gaga and Adam Driver revisits one of its intriguing lows.
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When Guccio Gucci opened his first store on Via Vigna Nuova in Florence, Italy, in 1921, little would he have imagined that his surname would become synonymous with sex appeal, hip-hoppers, and gender-fluid dressing, and amass 46 million followers on a 21st century social media platform called Instagram.
Add to that, screenplay-worthy family feuds, a near-bankruptcy, reversals of fortune, and a dramatic murder — the latter having provided the story for Ridley Scott's upcoming "House of Gucci."
The movie, featuring stars like Lady Gaga and Adam Driver, focuses on the 1995 murder of Maurizio Gucci, grandson of the founder, who was shot dead on the stairs to his office — on the orders of his ex-wife.
From migrant worker to luxury brand founder
Born on March 26, 1881, to a leather goods maker, Guccio Gucci left his native Italy in his teens, and among other jobs, worked as a bellboy at The Savoy Hotel in London in the late 1890s. It was the exquisite luggage of the hotel's well-heeled guests that first sparked his imagination.
Celebrating 100 years of Gucci
Here's a look at the evolution of the luxury Italian brand and the people and creations that have made it iconic.
Image: Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images
From bellboy to luxury brand founder
Guccio Gucci's stint as a bellboy at The Savoy Hotel in London was what sparked his interest in luxury travel goods. The smart luggage of the hotel guests, which included the horse-riding elite set, inspired him to create his own brand of luxury leather travel goods and signature emblems like the horsebit metal clasps and the green-and-red Gucci stripe.
Image: United Archives International/imago images
When necessity became the mother of invention
In 1935, the League of Nations had imposed a trade embargo on Italy, resulting in the shortage of imported leather. Gucci experimented with alternatives, using a type of woven hemp from Naples. The fabric was printed with its now familiar pattern of dark brown diamonds against a tan background. It proved durable enough to be used for suitcases, that eventually the jet set sported.
Image: Flavio Lo Scalzo/dpa/picture alliance
Those inimitable double Gs
Ever since its creation in the early 1950s, these interlocking Gs have become synonymous with the Italian luxury brand. Originally used as a clasp for handbags, they were even the subject of a court case in 2016 between Gucci and the American designer brand Guess — whose logo featured four interlocked Gs. It was eventually ruled that customers would be able to tell the logos apart.
Image: Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images
The horsebit loafer
When Guccio's son Aldo created the brand's original loafer in 1953, he decided to attach a metal horsebit clasp in its design — a throwback to the riding set whose conversations first spurred his father to adopt the horsebit emblem for his goods. The loafers soon gained popularity amongst the international jet set and Hollywood celebrities. Shown here is a modern version of the classic.
Image: Isabel Infantes/PA/dpa/picture alliance
When high fashion met hip hop
Daniel Day is an American fashion designer from Harlem, New York. From 1982-92, he operated his influential store, Dapper Dan's Boutique, where he famously created knockoffs of track suits for hip hoppers featuring high fashion logos, including Gucci's. His famous clients included Eric B. & Rakim, Salt-N-Pepa, LL Cool J, and Jay-Z. In 2017, he launched an 80s inspired fashion line with Gucci.
Image: Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images for Gucci
A turn of fortune
Texan-born designer Tom Ford is often credited with having turned the brand's fortunes around with his creations that oozed sex appeal. It was during his tenure as creative director that Gucci was transformed into a billion dollar business and became an "it" brand.
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Bringing sexy back
Among others, Tom Ford was known for designing sensual white dresses with provocative cut-outs like the one pictured above. Together with Vogue Paris editor-in-chief Carine Roitfeld and photographer Mario Testino, he also conceived some of the Gucci's racier advertisement campaigns, featuring models in eyebrow-raising poses.
Image: DOMENICO STINELLIS/AP/picture alliance
Murder and intrigue
The man who hired Tom Ford as creative director was Maurizio Gucci. He was the grandson of Guccio, and the last of the Gucci family dynasty to run the luxury brand before he sold all remaining stakes to a Bahraini financial firm. Known for his excessive lifestyle, Maurizio was murdered by hitman in 1995, on the order of his ex-wife, Patrizia Reggiani.
Image: unitalpress/dpa/picture-alliance
'The most Gucci of them all'
Patrizia Reggiani (center) was an Italian socialite who was convicted of hiring a hitman to kill her ex-husband Maurizio Gucci. Dubbed "The Black Widow" by the Italian press, she was sentenced to 26 years in prison but served 16. In 2014, she told "La Repubblica" newspaper that she hoped to return to the company. "They need me. I still feel like a Gucci — in fact, the most Gucci of them all."
Image: Aresu/Fotogramma/ROPI/picture alliance
A Hollywood-worthy drama
Naturally, such a sensational story involving a world-famous luxury brand had all the makings of a Hollywood drama. Ridley Scott's "House of Gucci," starring Lady Gaga and Adam Driver as the warring Patrizia and Maurizio, will hit cinemas on November 24. Initial reviews have been mixed, while living Gucci heirs accused Hollywood of profiting off the family's privacy.
Current Gucci creative director Alessandro Michele (right, seen here with model Georgia-May Jagger) has been credited with shaking up the brand and revolutionizing especially menswear. Tapping into pop culture and trends, he's made the 100-year-old brand remain relevant and therefore attractive to its fans today.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/J. Short
Not always on point
Under Michele's watch though Gucci was forced to remove a sweater from its Fall/Winter 2018 line following complaints about the garment's resemblance to blackface. Retailing at $890, the black sweater featured a roll-up collar that covered the lower face with a wide red lip outline around the mouth. Michele later apologized and said "That turtle neck jumper ... causes me the greatest grief."
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo
Men in dresses
Singer Harry Styles' US Vogue cover heralded a couple of firsts: He was its first-ever male cover star, and he wore a gown and short jacket by Gucci. Unsurprisingly, this sparked much talk on gender-fluid dressing. Renowned for wearing gowns at the Oscars, Black actor Billy Porter noted that he had "changed the game" through his lifelong fight: "All he (Styles) has to do is be white and straight."
Image: Vogue
The dawn of genderless dressing
At the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute Gala in 2019, actor Jared Leto wore a silky red, high-neck Gucci gown with shoulder pads and a crystal-encrusted bodychain. And accessorized it with a model of his own head. Alessandro Michele recalled how he'd convinced Leto to pick this outfit: "I said, 'Choose the red dress with the head. You will be like a Shakespearean character.'"
Years later, back in his native Florence, Gucci opened his first leather goods store, producing luxury travel goods for Italy's wealthy upper class, as well as equestrian gear influenced by conversations about polo and horse racing he'd overheard at The Savoy Hotel.
During WWII, when a League of Nations embargo against Italy caused a leather shortage, Gucci drew on his resourcefulness and created luggage made from woven hemp featuring the brand's now signature print — a series of interconnecting dark brown diamonds on a tan background.
The unmistakable Gucci print has prevailed for more than a centuryImage: CAN/Capital Pictures/picture alliance
Other Gucci hallmarks followed over the decades: the bamboo handle handbag, the double-G monogram, the Gucci red bar between two green stripes, and the Gucci loafer with its equestrian-inspired metal horsebit clasp, among others.
Across Italy and beyond
After WWII, Guccio's sons — Aldo, Vasco and Rodolfo — came onboard and opened more stores in Italy and abroad, spurring the company’s fortunes.
Aldo, for instance, oversaw the opening of Gucci's first New York store at the Savoy Plaza Hotel in 1953. Although founder Guccio passed away just 15 days later, the brand continued to make waves in New York City.
American actor Al Pacino plays Aldo Gucci in 'House of Gucci'Image: picture alliance/dpa/Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures/Universal Pictures
One of its handbags was renamed "the Jackie" after one of the city's famous residents, Jackie Kennedy, was seen carrying the model.
In 1985, the Gucci horsebit loafer was inducted into the Metropolitan Museum of Art's permanent collection. It was also famously worn by Madonna to the 1995 MTV Video Music Awards, and Brad Pitt in the 1999 film "Fight Club."
Behind the scenes though, things weren't always as rosy at the House of Gucci.
Singer Lady Gaga at the London premiere of 'House of Gucci'Image: Henry Nicholls/REUTERS
The 70s to 90s saw in-fighting among the Gucci siblings, tax evasion charges, poor management, flagging sales — and the headline-grabbing murder of Guccio's grandson and one-time Gucci head, Maurizio.
The family would eventually lose all stakes in the company after it was taken over by Bahrain-based Investcorp in 1993. It was later bought by French group PPR (now Kering SA), whose CEO Francois-Henri Pinault is married to Mexican-American actress Salma Hayek.
Hayek is part the star-studded cast of the upcoming Ridley Scott film, "House of Gucci," that focuses on the events leading to the murder of Maurizio Gucci (played by Adam Driver), orchestrated by his ex-wife Patrizia Reggiani (Lady Gaga).
Adam Driver and Lady Gaga star in 'House of Gucci'Image: picture alliance/dpa/Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures/Universal Pictures
Having once enjoyed a glitzy lifestyle together, Maurizio eventually left Patrizia for his mistress, Paola Franchi. Patrizia and her accomplices (which included a self-confessed witch called Auriemma, played by Hayek) were later found guilty of the crime, and served time in prison.
From sex appeal to genderless fashion
However, one fortune-reversing decision that Maurizio Gucci made before his untimely death was to enlist American designer Tom Ford as the brand's creative director.
Ford is often credited with having injected the brand with a heavy dose of sex appeal, extending even to its at-times scandalous advertisement campaigns.
With Ford at the helm creating high fashion that stood out against the grunge subculture of the 1990s, Gucci was transformed into a billion-dollar business, sealing its reputation as an "it" fashion brand.
Ford left big shoes to fill. His successors Alessandra Facchinetti and Frida Giannini did contribute to the brand's evolution — though not as exceptionally as he did.
The evolution of Gucci fashion from 2000 to 2019Image: Farinacci/Zennaro/Fashionpps/ANSA/epa/Zuma/dpa/picture alliance
In 2015, Alessandro Michele, who'd already been working at the fashion house including in roles as a handbag designer, was made creative director. And his recent genderless takes on fashion — especially men's fashion — has led to a revival of sorts for Gucci.
For instance, Michele dressed Jared Leto — who incidentally portrays Paolo Gucci in the film — in a red Gucci evening gown, accessorized with a model of his own head, for the 2019 Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute Gala.
And British singer Harry Styles became the first-ever man to grace the cover of American Vogue, wearing a periwinkle Gucci gown and dark jacket also designed by Michele.
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Beloved: from hip-hoppers to Instagrammers
Underscoring its place in pop culture is the fact that Gucci is one of the most-referenced brands in hip-hop music: Lil Pump's 2017 hit "Gucci Gang" mentions the brand 53 times.
Gucci's connection with hip-hop dates back to the 1980s, when Harlem-based designer Daniel Day aka Dapper Dan created knockoffs by customizing track jackets with Gucci's monogram for hip-hoppers Eric B. and Rakim for their debut record, "Paid in Full."
Gucci initially attempted to stop Dapper Dan from using their logo for his flamboyant "knock-ups," as he called them. The label has also tried to put an end to counterfeits of their designs through legal action — but the multi-million dollar industry still thrives. And the brand finally decided to collaborate with Dapper Dan himself, as part of its 100-year celebrations.
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Gucci fans including actor Jared Leto (center) and Dapper Dan (far right)Image: Victor Boyko/Getty Images for Gucci
The recent resurgence of 1990s trends has also helped Gucci amass a new market: millennials and Generation Z — people who are now in their 20s and 30s. Gucci's double G logo is hard to escape on social media these days. And as a nod to the trappings of the 21st century, there's also the Gucci Kids Playground: the company's first app dedicated to children's wear.
