The fashion purists already told the official version of the celebrations by the Centenary of Gucci: the fashion film that its creative director during the last six years, Alessandro Michele, presented in coincidence with the launch of his latest collection in which the summarize theHistory of the Artisanal Moroccan House founded by Gucci Gucci in a small store in the Via Della Vigna Nuova, in Florence, in 1921, with a review of its fundamental references.
In fifteen minutes, "Aria", the short run by Floria Sigismondi seeks to register the DNA of one of the most iconic names of Italian luxury without giving up a present in which he knew how to adapt perhaps with more speed than many of his most traditional rivalsto a trend where neither clothes nor accessories have gender.The fluid as a new brand and period seal crosses the styling until the end that the filmmaker synthesizes with models and garments that fly on a flower field, in an ethereal fantasy, transhuman.
From the mythical Savoy Hotel in which the creator of the firm began as buttons, everything takes place on a Hollywood laneThe double g that expected the delivery of a freshly commissioned Gucci dress.
From the boots, stirrups and equestrian helmets that initiated the family empire, to the sensual power with which the Texan Tom Ford revitalized him in the nineties, and with which he also shook the whole world of design.From the harnesses and chains inspired by Madonna, Musa and Fetish of Alessandro, to the collaboration with Denma Gvasalia, from Balenciaga, to fuse even the logos of the two giants of the Kering group in a single suit.A powerful image and capable of going around the world at the speed of networks to show the evolution of a centennial brand: from the small family leather goods to the multinational luxury conglomerate.
But can it be purist, perhaps when thinking about Gucci?Although the fashion film of Sigismoni prudently omits the allusions to the most stormy years of the company, and the aesthetics of Michele is so austere that many talk about its aidization, the creative direction itself understands that the great commitment of the celebrations of this anniversary notis precisely in that short.The movie based on the book by Sara Gay Forden The House of Gucci, which Ridley Scott has just finished shooting with Lady Gaga and Adam Driver, adds the missing piece in the temporal line and makes the brand appropriate for the first timeThe story of which he wanted to take off for decades and the glamorize: that of the crime for which Patrizia Reggiani Martinelli, then known as the Gucci signoraDirect the company.
In March 1995 the "Gucci Delitto" shook the world press.The entrepreneur was killed by a firing hitman on the back on the steps of his office in Milan.He was 46 years old and made four that he had divorced from Reggiani after an arduous legal battle, and two since the sale of his participation in the firm founded by his grandfather Guccio to an Arab financial, who had also involved a bitter family dispute with his uncleand his cousins.
Although he had a new partner with whom he lived, the Gucci Signor.No one suspected that, three years later, Reggiani would be sentenced to 29 years in prison for the murder of his ex -husband.The media would begin to call her "the black widow".
They had met at a party in Milan in the late 60.He fell in love, but she didn't let himself be so easy for that coveted heir.I was used to wealth, and Maurizio had to use all his patience and his millions to conquer it.Reggiani is famous for once said: "I prefer to cry in a rolls-royce than to be happy on a bicycle".With her, who would soon be her husband, learned the ostentatious luxury from which they made their own brand.They married 72, at age 24, against the opinion of Patriarch Rodolfo Gucci, who considered her a climbing.
But the father -in -law of the today Black Widow softened before the arrival of his first granddaughter, Alessandra.And when approaching his son, he bought several properties from the couple, including a 840 m2 penthouse at the New York Olympic Tower, on Fifth Avenue.They soon became one of the first Power Couple Fashion Marketing.Many decades before "Bennifer" and "Brangelina", the Gucci walked through Manhattan with a car whose patent read: "Mauizia".
Even for the extravagance of the seventies, the sumptuous standard of living of the signor and the Gucci Signora surprised the press.From his New York penthouse to his alpine shelter in the exclusive Ski ST center.Moritz;From his paradisiaca Villa in Acapulco, his rural farm in Connecticut, or any of his private islands around the world, aboard his wooden sailboat 64 meters in length, Creole, which Maurizio bought the Greek millionaire Stavros Niarchos forcelebrate the arrival of his second daughter, Allegra.The Gucci were famous for their theme parties, often aboard the Creole, in which the Code Dress, the setting - where the orchids for which Patrizia spent more than US $ 10.000 per month - and even the menu were monochromatic, and used to have among their guests their friend Jackie Ossis.
But, according to Reggiani herself to the Italian program Storie Maleredette, after spending 19 years arrested and again in the media focus with the news about the production of the film about her life, the death of Rodolfo Gucci, in 1983, was a pointBreaking in the couple.Maurizio, who had started working in the company at age 15, inherited 50%, while the remaining half remained in the hands of his uncle Aldo and his cousins, Paolo, Roberto, Giorgio and Patrizia.“He began to act as if he no longer had to take care of anything or anyone.He went crazy.Until that time I advised him on all the affairs of the brand - says the today black widow - but now he wanted to be the best, and stopped hearing me ".
In 1985, the heir to the Gucci clan told his wife that he was on a short business trip to Florence and never returned.After thirteen years of marriage, he had started a relationship with a younger woman and - she complained in the same program - did not even have the courage to tell her wife, who learned by the family doctor that he would not return.But although they separated, the family, and the company, were first for her: it would continue to be the gucci significant.
Although with the divorce agreement he maintained the custody of Alessandra and Allegra and the equivalent of 1.000.000 euros per year, Patrizia was not formed.What really bothered him was how his former managed the firm and that would have made it to the side of an empire that he considered his.In a report of the time he remembers bitterly that Maurizio said: “Do you know why our marriage failed?Because you thought you were the president, and the only president is me ".
The brand had lost prestige for oversizing its monogram license and producing its canvas wallets in mass.Maurizio planned to recover the glory by betting again to the artisanal leather goods on which his grandfather Guccio had put the fundamental stone.Back to the origin of the famous Moccasins of the double G that he himself had positions the morning in which he was achieved by the three fatal shots of the hitman in the via Palestro.
For years, he had plotted against his uncle Aldo and his cousins, to keep his half of the actions, until he achieved it with the help of the Arab financial investment.It was he, before he died, who made the right decision to hire designer Tom Ford in the creative direction.But although the Texan would revitalize Gucci with an unthinkable glamor, Maurizio never saw him.Reggiani was right that, as president, his ex was a lousy administrator and did not earn enough to execute his ideas.With his personal fortune staggering, in 1993 he was forced to sell the entire brand to Investcorp for about US $ 200 million dollars.The family legacy in fashion was over.
"She was angry with him for many reasons at that time," Reggiani told The Guardian in a report in which he admitted the reasons for the crime. ".But above all, because he lost the family business.That was stupid.I was full of anger and there was nothing I could do.I shouldn't have done that."
Giusi Ferrè, un veterano crítico cultural y de moda milanés que siguió el caso, sostiene que las teorías sobre las razones por las que Reggiani mató a Maurizio Gucci siempre fueron estereotípicas: “Estaba celosa de la nueva novia de Maurizio, quería su dinero, temía perder la herencia, estaba amargada porque la había dejado de lado, estaba loca…" Si hay un poco de verdad en cada una, dice, el móvil real era mucho más profundo: “Todo aquello en lo que se apoyaba Patrizia era en ser una Gucci: era su identidad, incluso como ex mujer. Se enfureció cuando él vendió la marca".In 2014, Reggiani declared the newspaper La Repubblica that now that it was going to be free and available again, I expected the firm to call it."They need me. Yo todavía me siento una Gucci; de hecho, soy la más Gucci de todos", dijo.
Of course that never happened, but it is a radical change that the current creative direction has agreed to take care of the most scandalous part of its past in full celebration of its hundred years.Perhaps because, as the descent of Sara Gay Forden's book says, it is a sensational history of crime, madness, glamor and greed, which has finally decided to explode.Michele himself collaborated with the costume replicas for Scott's movie, with the awareness that the story says more about the obscene sensuality of double g than no advertising.
But there is no single way to understand Gucci.And also that the devil always preferred to dress in Prada.Before the sumptuous elegance of Tom Ford, and the non -binary neorromanticism of Michele, the brand created by Gucci Gucci in 1921 was almost since its inception associated with the ostentatious luxury, of visible and recharged monogram.So much so that, in 1956, for the marriage of Grace Kelly and Rainiero de Monaco - gumorous for the tapas of the heart magazines, but none by the royal houses such as the New Rich cousins of the European monarchy -, the souvenir for all the guestsThey were Guantes de la Casa Gucci.
Perhaps the great success of Alessandro Michele today is precisely not to deny any of the facets of the brand he directs, not even the most contradictory.His gift is to be able to settle between the avant -garde and nostalgia.Two years ago, in an interview with Vogue, before it was known that Lady Gaga would become the Gucci Signora, and therefore in the most visible face of the brand, he said: “I love the contemporary.But I'm always looking at the past, it is impossible to ignore it.Think of Lady Gaga: it changed a million times, used all styles, but in the end, it wanted to be Lana Turner, because those stars of the cinema before are the true divas, the goddesses of beauty and power.I think of Gucci as an adjective to describe a world, and that is much better than selling clothes or accessories.Because fashion is like pop music in the eighties: something that is alive, that evolves, that has history. No solo un montón de piezas en una boutique para gente rica".
