From Brand's Ambassadors Shifting To Transformed Runway Style, What's The Next Shift For Gucci
23rd November 2022 was a defining day for Gucci, as the long running Creative Director Alessandro Michele exiting the brand and leaving the fashion world in shock. While the new Creative Director Sabato De Sarno has been announced and a grand and successful show presented in March, Gucci seemed still running in full speed and continuing on achieving.
But shiftings are happening. From the style to the company's ideals, changes are happening everywhere.
Alessandro Michele has a pretty distinctive style and vision for Gucci but it wasn't too difficult to see the shift of his own design through out the years. With bold designs and vivid colours, Michele's Gucci won customers' attention since 2015. Season by season Michele delivered shows with eye opening and innovative looks, and shifting shows from separate womenswear and menswear collections to one combined show. And with the emphasis of hermaphroditism, the shows were boundaries breaking. Then the brand shifted back to having separate womenswear and menswear shows. While Covid happened, Gucci took a huge decision on not having a traditional fashion show, instead, having a series of short movies to present the collection online. But it was rather clear that the show changed back to a combined womenswear and menswear collection. And after that it was the return of traditional fashion show featuring the headline making Balenciaga Hacker Project. The first physical show with audiences was the grand return of Gucci Love Parade revealed in Los Angeles. From the back-and-forth of the structures of the fashion shows, it provides us a peak through the company's ideology shifting. Michele, as a strong voice in bending gender boundaries and hermaphroditism, combining the womenswear and menswear collections are not difficult to understand. But the constant changes of the structure makes us suspect if the House as a whole likes that idea and if that has contributed to the split of the previous Creative Director and the House.
Regardless if there were 'mismatching ideologies' through out the year while Michele was the Creative Director of the House, changes will be made this year and shifts will happen. The House presented two separate fashion shows on womenswear and menswear for their 23 Fall Winter, which is a shifting from the previous combined show Twinsburg, which was a headliner featuring twin models walking down the runway presenting unprecedented ideas. And that was the last Michele appearance at a Gucci fashion show. Months after, Michele parts from the brand. But that was not Michele's last collection. As the reports on the split emerged in November, and the 23 Fall Winter menswear collection presented in January, and the finale without a designer presence, not hard for us to figure out that collection would be the last one Michele worked on while he was at Gucci.
From that collection, it gives us a glimpse of the shifting dynamics of the styles in the House.
From Michele's signature more loose and casual silhouette and bold colours, transformed to a more classic and chic tailoring and the combination of neutral and vivid colours. A mixing of oversized street wear and formal styles with less logos. The Michele's signature glamour is there, but also the House's heritage silhouette and Tom Ford era's sexy chic also were presented. A move like this could mean many things, but one thing for sure is the House was not 100% with the latest few collections Michele did and wants a change of 'style'.
Similar shifts are in the womenswear 23 Fall Winter fashion show too. With very little logo in the design but with classically tailored modern styles, mixing boldness of sexuality and formality and a dive into the House archives bring back some timeless items with modern touches, Gucci presented a collection that pointing to a new and different direction. It's sexy, it's bold, it's glamorous, it's elegant and it's chic. Not 100% different from Michele's vision as some looks do echo with 2020 Spring Summer collection for me, but very different from the collections since 2021.
When Michele became the Creative Director, there came the huge change of aesthetics in Gucci, but how do you keep up with the creativeness? And when there're changes, there will be two things come along, new clients and the loss of some existing clients. With the bold designs, losing clients that are more interested in more formal aesthetics and styles is unavoidable, but how many and on what cost is the question. And the constant change of the structures of the shows and ideals is not as appealing and somewhat confusing. Losing clients during and after Covid may have played as an important element in the huge shifting within the House.
Although, Gucci's sales has been making records seasons by seasons, as one of the few brands that kept their growth during Covid, it's relatively hard to believe Gucci has been losing clients or sales. Without the data for those information, we can only guess.
At Gucci, amazing client service was well known. With amazing personal experiences and great parties Gucci hosted through out the years, no wonder why Gucci has been kept growing. But Gucci didn't stop with just that. The ritual of taking their clients abroad for luxury trips isn't really a secret. Hosting amazing fashion shows (especially cruise shows), taking clients to famous resort locations for a several days trip with unique gifts, fantastic banquets and of course a great show, Gucci finds its ways to keep their clients coming back.
It's kind of common in the fashion world, but it does seem, Gucci has been investing more and providing grander and better experiences for their clients since Michele became the Creative Director. Treating clients with amazing personal touches in a family like fashion, Alessandro Michele charmed House's clients and the industry with Italian family values and hospitableness.
Would that change after Michele's exit? Would Gucci start to cut on expenses to profit more? They're unsure just yet. But if as imagined, the brand made all the big shifts because it isn't too happy with the recent sales performance, cutting costs will be highly likely, and from where? Probably from the money they think it's a bit over the top. If all these predictions are correct, Gucci's clientele relations may also be facing a huge shift too.
With its unquestionable achievements and growth, its influence in the industry, Gucci could be an indicator for the fashion industry's next direction.
From the huge shift in its style and visions, should we all expect a huge return of the 90s sexiness in fashion? And should we also prepare for a more distinctive difference of presentation and style between menswear and womenswear? Or should we also keep our eyes open for a different shopping experience in the luxury industry? They are all very possible. But what will they do to the industry and where will they lead to for the industry as a whole?
With Daniel Lee's Burberry diving in the archive and brought back the classic British styles, Gucci's remake of their 90s classics, Houses are digging back to their heritages and roots. We always say fashion is a circle, trends circle back. And maybe we are witnessing one right now.
Michele's leaving was not the only influential element that departed from the House. With Alessandro's leaving, unsurprisingly, Jared Leto left and did a vengeance parade at Paris Fashion Week attending more than 3 shows with fabulous looks. A month after Gucci 23 Fall Winter show, Gucci's long running Global Brand Ambassador since 2016, Chris Lee who attended the new show, signed brand new contract with Versace. Not knowing the reasons behind, or if she won't serve as Gucci's Global Ambassador but it's expected when Creative Director left, their friends may follow.
Celebrity endorsements are a very important part of luxury fashion marketing. Their huge fan bases would follow what their stars wear, the sales on fan base is huge, especially in China. Gucci made many great partnerships with Chinese celebrities in the past few years like Chris Lee, Liu Wen, Lu Han and Xiao Zhan who was a raising star in China brought unprecedented attention to the brand with his ambassadorship.
Last year, Rihanna and A$AP Rocky's appearance at Gucci show drew huge attention and this year, becoming the House's Ambassador, their partnership keeps bringing new attentions and revenues.
Gucci has been doing an amazing job on getting as vast and varied representation among their celebrities endorsements. From A-list actors like Jessica Chastain, Salma Hayek, Dakota Johnson and Ryan Gosling; award winning singers like A$AP Rocky, Elton John, Miley Cyrus, Harry Styles and MANESKIN; Chinese stars Lu Han, Chris Lee, Xiao Zhan and Ni Ni; K-Pop stars Hanni and Kai; footballer Jack Grealish and supermodels Liu Wen. The diversity of the list means Gucci can reach out to as many and diverse potential clients and audiences as possible.
Losing celebrity endorsement could potentially damage the proficiency of finding new clients and convey the brand's ideology to more audiences. With Michele's exiting, there were speculations of his very good friend Harry Styles may leave the brand, but as far as his Love On Tour goes, Gucci still plays a huge part of his performances wardrobe.
Gucci's ideology of fashion has changed, but will the House itself change? It's still too soon to say, but changes won't stop at just fashion and products level. We will have to keep our eyes peeled and wait.