Can Lightning Strike Thrice at Gucci?

MILAN — Have a look at the gorgeous younger issues of their tank tops and quick shorts within the streets of any Italian metropolis and it’s simple to see the place Sabato De Sarno is coming from along with his first assortment for Gucci. It’s rather more troublesome to see the place he’s going, which is hard as a result of he’s presupposed to be taking the $35 billion model with him. And Friday’s present didn’t provide a lot assist in illuminating a convincing method ahead.

Lightning has already struck twice for Gucci with Tom Ford and Alessandro Michele, however in each these circumstances, the corporate was in such a state that it had nothing to lose by taking a flier on an unknown. Ford and Michele had the liberty to grasp distinctly private visions that instantly registered as new. In 2023, the stakes are considerably larger. There’s lots to lose. And, though De Sarno was insistent that the gathering was as deeply private for him as Ford’s and Michele’s undoubtedly had been for them, there was nothing new about it. As I stated, stroll down any Italian road and there’s the look.

However perhaps the shock of the brand new wasn’t the purpose with De Sarno’s debut. On Wednesday, he advised Vogue Runway’s Nicole Phelps that he thought Gucci had misplaced contact with its Italian heritage and he needed to convey it again. Which urged that Gucci Ancora (Once more), the message that has been promoted globally within the lead-up to the present, might be interpreted as Gucci Reborn. (The unlucky implication of all this was that De Sarno was impugning his predecessor. Italians name it “spitting within the plate.”)

He’d supposed to current his assortment within the streets of Brera, one in every of Milan’s loveliest previous districts, however the climate has been a satan this week, so he was pressured to convey the present indoors, to the same old house at Gucci HQ. As an alternative of lining quaint cobblestoned streets, the viewers sat in an unlimited, unatmospheric, industrial sq.. It goes with out saying that De Sarno’s garments would have been significantly better served by his unique intent to point out them reside on the street, the place you may think about the slouchy denims and blouson, the leather-based shorts and hoodie, the sporty parka, and the onesies — with a pink satin social gathering gown underneath a duffel coat for later — on ladies who like to hearken to Romy and Lykke Li and the opposite energy popstrels that Mark Ronson programmed into the soundtrack.

First seems to be typically encapsulate designers’ ideas for his or her new collections. Remembering how Ford and Michele immediately acknowledged their circumstances with the primary seems to be of their debut reveals, I regarded to De Sarno’s first outfit as an expression of Gucci Ancora. New face Ana was sporting the quick shorts (GG buckle in full impact), white tank and platform loafers, swathed in a protracted, darkish coat, superbly tailor-made as a result of coats are De Sarno’s obsession (he has a group of 200). A traditional Jackie bag swung from her shoulder (reconceptualised with a Gucci-striped strap as an alternative of a deal with) and her throat was wrapped in a Marina chain, just like the one worn by an in any other case bare Daria Werbowy in De Sarno’s masterful teaser marketing campaign on Instagram. That good, seductive, grownup perspective was sorely missed on Friday’s catwalk.

Though Ana really did a reasonably good job of summing up all the things De Sarno had been saying within the days earlier than the present, there was not one of the frisson of rebirth that Gucci was in search of. Then once more, I ponder if such a sensation is even potential at this level. Would content-saturated audiences recognise it? Or is that this simply going to be extra ancora and ancora and ancora?