Sabato De Sarno wants people to fall in love with Gucci again, titling his debut collection “Gucci Ancora,” Italian for “Gucci Again.”
MILAN (AP) — Sabato De Sarno wants people to fall in love with Gucci again, calling his debut collection “Gucci Ancora,” Italian for “Gucci Again.”
The title is a touching admission of the challenges facing the 40-year-old designer, who joined Gucci this summer from Valentino, where he worked for 14 years after stints at Prada and Dolce & Gabbana.
The question is: can De Sarno do again what his predecessor Alessandro Michele was able to achieve by exciting the public to swarm to Gucci, pacing revenues at a sustained double-digit growth for French owner, Kering? Until the inevitable dip.
The furor was enough to fill the front row with Hollywood A-listers including Julia Roberts and Ryan Gosling.
What the collection wasn’t: It wasn’t overtly sexy in a sultry way, like in the Tom Ford-era. Nor was it eclectic, like Michele’s romantic, gender-fluid vision. Both marked boom periods in the 100-year history of the brand founded by Guccio Gucci after a stint as a bellhop in London.
In one recent interview, De Sarno professed admiration for Brutalist architecture, suggesting a love of the essential, and his collection was exactly that.
The Gucci logo was sparingly deployed. The Gucci stripe made a few cameo appearances.
A simple gray sweatshirt excited one fashionista to stand up in the third row to grab a photo. Is this the deliverance the fashion world has been waiting for? Or was it more the novelty of absence, the promise of simplicity?
There’s lots for a body-confident Gen-Z to love, without being pushed toward sensuality.
To wit: White tanks, which another brand has done to great success, paired with very short shorts and a double-G logo belt. There was a baby-knit culotte and matching polo with Gucci stripe detailing, worn without pretension. A tiny leather bra top in embossed leather was paired with a matching midi skirt. A series of pretty shift dresses had a simple, sculptural appeal.
Instead of the stilettoes of the 1990s, most looks were paired with platform loafers.
Fringe was one of De Sarno’s few adornments, casting movement on a pair of skirts. Shoes in the closing looks rustled with tinsel — some of which were reminiscent of Michele’s fur-lined loafers. And a series of shifts for the evening were decorated with rhinestones.
A forecast of rain forced the show from the cobblestoned streets of Brera, flanked by Milan’s stoic architecture — a setting that would have imbued the looks with their street sense. Instead, it was held in a boxy black showroom in Gucci’s Hub on the edge of the city that failed to transmit emotion.