
Gucci creative director Alessandro Michele Michele was certainly destined for the top spot. New CEO Marco Bizzarri was looking for a staff member to brief him on design after the ousting of ex-CEO Patrizio di Marco and creative director Giannini, a husband-and-wife-team. Dismal sales had plagued Gucci for many seasons, following Giannini’s predictable modern-glamazon formula that was fast losing favour with the fashion crowd. As fate would have it, it was Michele who debriefed Bizzarri and a quick bond formed between the two. At the recent WWD Summit, Bizzarri said his choice of Michele was based purely on intuition and instinct as they developed a close rapport over a shared vision and mutual understanding of Gucci, with Bizzarri’s business standpoint and Michele’s perspective in creative design, according to Forbes.com. Furthermore, it is reported that Bizzarri leaves matters of design completely to Michele, saying, “You cannot put limits or constraints on creativity.” The Gucci CEO backs that up with corporate values that foster creativity, including “respect, happiness, passion, empowerment and inclusivity”. Fashion moves in cycles and as clichéd as she sounds, Heidi Klum of Project Runway uttered a fashion truth with her tagline: “One day you’re in, the next day you’re out.” So, what has caused Gucci’s meteoric rise under Michele’s new sartorial direction? Pamela N Danziger, on Forbes.com, narrows it down to a trio of reasons. First, Gucci has succeeded in capturing the attention (and wallets) of millennial consumers. Kering chairman and CEO François-Henri Pinault reveals that this 35-year-old-and-below segment — that has until now proved elusive for luxury brands to lure into their fold — contributes 50% of Gucci’s sales. Secondly, Gucci’s stickiness with millennials is the result of the hot Italian brand’s triumph in orchestrating a digital strategy — encompassing website and e-commerce, digital marketing, social media and mobile apps — that integrates online with the in-store experience to create a “true omnichannel, or channel agnostic, customer experience”. Lastly, Danziger surmises that Gucci’s success results from the perfect synergy created by the Bizzarri-Michele dream team, more so than the brand’s industry-leading digital performance. According to Bloomberg.com, Gucci has posted an 86% increase in online sales in the first quarter, giving e-commerce revenue for Kering’s luxury division a 60% boost. Adding to the brand’s e-commerce prowess are partnerships with online wholesalers such as Net-a-Porter, where exclusive specially designed capsule collections are offered, while a 90-minute rapid delivery was introduced on another online partner, Farfetch. Product-wise, in Michele’s Gucci era, the iconic GG logo was retrieved from the archives and featured prominently on the accessories line. To inject a slightly subversive flavour into the brand’s classic logo, graffiti artist Trevor Andrew, aka GucciGhost, was invited by Michele to collaborate on one of Gucci’s collections. Other archival elements, such as the Dionysus buckle, have been successfully introduced into Gucci’s new repertoire of handbags and shoes, with the Dionysus structured, squarish shoulder bag on the radar screen as a current It-bag. Possibly, the most defining items synonymous with Michele’s Gucci reign are the more price-friendly and accessible Princetown mule loafers and Ace sneakers, both now ubiquitously worn by hordes of the fashion-conscious.

Gucci Cruise 2018
