A century of Gucci explained through 10 key moments

Guccio Gucci, born in Florence in 1881 to a family of Tuscan artisans, developed a passion for fashion when, at a very young age, he moved with his family to London to work as an elevator operator in a famous hotel in the British capital, admiring the magnificence of English nobility. It was nostalgia that pushed him to return permanently to Tuscany, where he began selling luggage and leather goods, and in 1921, he founded the Guccio Gucci Individual Company in Florence.

It was a small store where he sold imported leather luggage, gradually expanding to include travel goods and saddlery for horse riding, made by local artisans. The house’s leather accessories will always refer to the equestrian world: first the horsebit and stirrup, then a green-red-green ribbon inspired by the saddle girth.

Despite the death of Guccio Gucci in ’53, the Florentine company enjoyed exponential sales growth. A first store was opened outside of Italy in New York, followed by several others, so much so that an area of the Big Apple was known as Gucci City. The well-established Maison will dress the most famous stars of cinema and politics, including the beautiful Liz Taylor and Jackie Kennedy from that moment on.

She is the inspiration behind Jackie O, one of the brand’s most iconic bags, first introduced in 1961, with its curved shape and gold-colored metal clasp.

Following this global success, in 1966 Prince Rainier of Monaco and his wife Grace Kelly entered the Gucci Boutique on Via Montenapoleone in Milan, where they were welcomed by Rodolfo Gucci, who commissioned a design from illustrator, painter and set designer Vittorio Accornero de Testa for a silk scarf.

Flora, the iconic silk scarf whose floral motif has inspired and continues to inspire Gucci’s designs and collections today, was born.

In 1994, Tom Ford, a young Texan designer, was chosen as the house’s new creative director. To revive the brand, Dawn Mello was hired as vice-president to bring novelty and creativity to the brand. The pivotal point was the f/w 1995 collection, characterized by a series of velvet pants and silk blouses.

Here, supermodel Kate Moss walked the runway in a teal satin shirt, fitting like a lingerie. Paired with an iridescent mini bag, the look represented the peak of the ’90s, later replicated the same year by Madonna at the MTV Music Video Awards.

Two seasons later, with his Fall 1996 runway show, the brand was able to sustain this positive upswing but with a much wider audience, now more receptive to Ford’s new approach to glamour. The American designer immediately understood the importance of advertising campaigns and combined with his stylistic directives, Gucci once again became a point of reference on the international scene.

The most iconic dress of the show was the red velvet suit, worn that same year by Gwyneth Paltrow - paired with a pastel blue oxford shirt open at the neckline - and reinterpreted in the more recent Aria collection.

Abandoning the rigid elegance that had characterized him until recently, in 2002 Ford introduced new relaxed shapes, for what would later prove to be his last collection as the brand’s creative director. The new aesthetic marries a savoir-faire with hip-hop resonance, with ultra-casual pants and jackets with asymmetrical seams were cut extra-large.

Ford showed here delicately gathered aprons and a double-layered black dress riveted with tiny eyelet hooks.

After Ford’s sudden departure, three different designers were then appointed: John Ray, Alessandra Facchinetti, who became Creative Director for womenswear in 2004, and Frida Giannini, Gucci’s designer since 2002, who was appointed creative director of the brand in 2006.

The latter toned down the Porno Chic explosion of her predecessor, reinterpreting the brand “from sexy to sensual”. Her debut is more colorful and rich in prints, full of feminine dresses with a 70s flavor.

In January 2015, Alessandro Michele, already the brand’s designer since 2002, is appointed as the new creative director. From this date we can trace the life of a “new Gucci” with a sophisticated, intellectual and androgynous taste. After two decades of ostentatious sex, a post-gender fashion arrives, helped by the new casting: incredibly young models and an almost awkward and asexual air.

The women’s collection brings a new freshness to the brand, with floral prints, lace, embroidery and fur, sometimes all mixed on one garment.

A transhuman procession in an operating room. In 2018 Alessandro Michele told in his clothes the metaphor of self-determination, a population undergoing regeneration thanks to the new potential offered by technology. Inspired by Donna Haraway’s “Cyborg Manifesto”, a pillar of feminist philosophy published in ’84, Gucci puts on the catwalk a figure that overcomes the dualism of identity, combining nature and culture, male and female, normal and alien, psyche and matter.

Someone was cradling a baby dragon. A couple of people had replicas of their heads tucked under their arms. Many had their faces covered by knitted half-balaclavas, surreally suggesting a post-operative state.

In his latest work, Creative Director Alessandro Michele made the iconic Hollywood Boulevard shine, paying homage to the first stars of the American silver screen. In presenting the new women’s and men’s collections, we find all the memories and mythological characters of Michele’s childhood on the runway in the form of contemporary transfigurations.

In this process of synthesis, the white dress worn by Marilyn Monroe in the film “When the wife is on vacation” becomes a long dress in milk-colored satin edged with pleats, or even a V-neck blazer suit.