Gucci’s fast-track approach shows early signs of success

Gucci's “see now, buy now” approach for the first collection from new designer Demna, harnessing a buzz around the brand to draw shoppers back to its stores after years of lacklustre sales, is showing some early success, data shows.

- TASSILO HUMMEL MIMOSA SPENCER

Demna stole the show at Milan Fashion Week last month, dropping images of his first-ever Gucci collection on social media a day before the official debut in the style of a star-studded film premiere, an unusual move.

The day after the celebrity-packed event, Gucci again broke with industry conventions, making the new products from the Milan show immediately available in ten flagship stores until Oct 12.

Big luxury houses usually stick to a rigid calendar of fashion shows months before clothes hit the shops.

But Gucci's fast-track approach is showing some early improvements in store traffic in the United States, foot-traffic data compiled by Placer.ai and provided to Reuters by Colliers, shows.

At the Rodeo Drive store in Los Angeles, one of the boutiques stocked with the new products, traffic rose steadily in each of the four days following the Milan show on Sept 23, with weekly store visits up 53% from the previous week, the data showed. At Gucci's Wooster Street store in New York weekly traffic was up 19%.

Countrywide store visits in the US reached their highest level in three weeks the weekend after the Demna launch, the data showed.

Gucci-owner Kering and Gucci declined to comment when asked about shopper appetite for the Demna collection.

DEMNA’S NEW DESIGNS