A Wren Says

As I did my digging to learn more about Sabato de Sarno’s entrance to and exit from Gucci, I questioned whether two years were enough time. Is it reasonable to expect a designer to turn around a brand in a mere 24 months?

If you think about what Gucci came to represent, you have to go back to the TikTok trend, of being a Gucci model. Users scrounge around their homes for random clothing and household items to recreate what they said was the Gucci aesthetic. Excessive, not just in the cost of the items, but in how much was presented to you.

It was said that we should expect a swing towards maximalism, after the chokehold of the minimalist Old Money aesthetic. And that trend would have certainly set Gucci up for success, but it didn’t. Sales continued to drop, as they did among many brands. The lower sales figures weren’t just a Gucci problem, certainly not a de Sarno problem. It was an industry wide industry issue.

Brands were competing with cultural shifts, economic shifts, and a buyer weary of the new geopolitical landscape. Perhaps I am naïve, but I think it would take more than different designs to address all of that. I may love everything coming down the runway but still be too cautious to by.

As the major fashion houses continue to shuffle designers, I wonder if they are thinking about that. Are they thinking about how they will reach the hearts of their would-be customers? Are they thinking, as an entire organization, how they will address the fears? Are they considering the role of the full gamut of marketing tools can help them shift their sales numbers? Or are they just going to keep shuffling designers as if they are the only cards they have to play in their hands?