How Gucci Won Big With Gender Fluidity

The Italian luxury fashion house has bet big on the changing gender attitude of young people around the world, reaping rewards that go beyond fashion.

- Radhakrishnan Nair

On a cold Monday afternoon in January 2015, an unusual sense of anticipation could be felt at the carpeted auditorium at Milan’s Piazza Oberdan as fashion mavens, writers and editors waited for the Gucci show at the finale of the 2015 Autumn/Winter Men’s Fashion Week. The show had been preceded by some high voltage drama at the Italian luxury fashion house.

In December, the Kering group, the French luxury conglomerate that owns Gucci, had announced the unexpected departure of Frida Giannini, the creative director of the Italian fashion brand along CEO Patrizio di Marco. Giannini was initially meant to leave her position at the end of February, but the news had just arrived in the previous week that her contract had been abruptly terminated and that the new CEO, Marco Bizzarri, had then scrapped her designs for the men’s show. He had instead asking Giannini’s long-time deputy, Alessandro Michele, to step in and design a brand new collection, giving him just a week to do this. Though Michele, who was then 42, had worked for more than a decade with the brand, rising to become Giannini’s associate and head accessories designer, he was very little known outside of Gucci. Hence the sense of uncertainty about what to expect from the collection amongst those present that afternoon at the show at Piazza Oberdan.