Saturday 13 December 2014

Gucci: Too Big for Their Own Boots?


Winter corner of Gucci by Accornero scarf 



All change, all change, Frida Giannini, Creative Director of Gucci will leave next February, a month after her partner, Patrizio Di Marco. The news was announced just after the Gucci pre-fall campaign and in time for Christmas. It's sad and unjust that the 8 years of Giannini's steady creative and wearable output is seen as the reason for Gucci's poor bottom line performance of late, whilst the Kering parent company ignores their own plans of world domination through over-expansion and unrealistic shareholder dreams.   


The change initiated a whole garble of identikit news comment on the supposed changing demographics of the average luxury consumer. There is an unhealthy obsession with courting the Chinese, the Arabs, the Russians, the Brazilians or wherever the next untapped average billionaire comes from in the supposed new world order.  No one likes a fawning toady. Where ever people come from they like to be treated as intelligent and sophisticated. Connoisseurs of beautiful and discernibly quality objects are not easily swayed by teen actors swinging the latest whatever gets thrown at her/him, never mind the logo.   Talking abut youth, young consumers have always chosen to shop differently than their parents, do Kering really think teenagers will part with thousands of dollars (or comparable currency) because a new creative director will put on a crazy show six times a year, maybe they will, but it seems positively adolescent to chase a mythical marketing dragon.  The bottom line, changing the creative talent at an established brand is not going improve the dividend if Gucci continue to provide seasonal discount sales and knock-em-out outlet fodder.  

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