On May 14th, Italian luxury brand Gucci held a press conference for the 2025 Early Spring collection at the Tate Gallery in London. This is the first time creative director Sabato De Sarno has hosted a show outside of Milan’s fashion week schedule since his official inauguration in 2023.
After experiencing two press conferences in spring/summer and autumn/winter of 2024, Sabato De Sarno has established a planning style – streamlined silhouettes, purer colors, and simpler details. Along with it, there were fewer appearances on each show.
But perhaps because this was the origin of a holiday show, Sabato De Sarno did not follow the common rainy weather in London to create another cold and concise series, but instead brought the soft and relaxed colors of southern Italy to the show.
The red shirt, lace skirt, lace jacket, and lace pants have a gentle and sexy characteristic. The trench coat decorated with tassels was paired with lemon green, while another strapless dress with tassels did not show the sudden change from pink to lemon green from top to bottom. A series of flowing sheer pleated long dresses did not appear at the beginning of the costume show, indicating that they will become a choice for many celebrities on the red carpet in the future.
Why did Sabato De Sarno choose to host his first vacation show in London after taking office? One reason for this is that Guccio Gucci founded the brand in London 102 years ago. He used to be a doorman at the Savoy Inn in London, and his experience of serving the wealthy gave him the inspiration to create a luggage brand.
Since Sabato De Sarno took office, the frequently seen “Gucci Anbu Tui Hong” in ready to wear, advertising, and flash sports did not first appear in the decoration of the elevator at the Savoy Hotel. In the process of transformation, Gucci has added more spirit and capital to sort out and exaggerate its brand history in recent years.
In the 2022 autumn/winter collection created by former creative director Alessandro Michele to celebrate Gucci’s 100th anniversary, there was no inspiration to go through the clothing of creative directors Tom Ford and Frida Giannini. In 2023, Gucci will once again be the first stop of the Shanghai action “Heaven and Earth Gucci” collection exhibition.
If you often read Gucci’s social media accounts, you will find that he has been extremely passionate about promoting ankle bags such as bamboo bags, loafers, and Horsebit 1955, which lacks the same retrospective essence as a documentary in recent years. And everything we do is aimed at strengthening Gucci’s civilization and historical abstraction, proving to the mall the cost of its multiple cycles of travel over a hundred years.
With the luxury goods industry facing a downturn, multiple luxury brands recorded a decline or narrowing of growth in the first quarter of 2024. LVMH group expenses increased by 2% year-on-year, while Herm è s group expenses narrowed from 22.3% in 2023 to 12.6%. And Gucci’s parent company, Heyun Group, was also affected, with sales expenses falling by 11% year-on-year.
But top luxury brands like Gucci are still the most eye-catching tenant category in high-end shopping centers. They have a high impact and a large rental area, and many trade real estate operators are more willing to leave empty exhibitions to relatively more stable top luxury brands in uncertain situations.
However, top luxury brands are not immune to provocation. Compared to Louis Vuitton and Chanel, Gucci’s own historical narrative carries a relatively low cost of civilization, despite occupying an important position in contemporary popular civilization. Nowadays, consumers are cautious and conservative, and Gucci needs to change the forces accumulated in popular civilization into the cost of civilization.
This matter won’t be easy, but sometimes it’s not that difficult. The current communication media has regarded the time around 2000 as a golden age for the outbreak of fashionable creativity, and the then popular Gucci naturally lost a considerable amount of attention. In addition to Louis Vuitton, whose views accommodate mountains and seas, Gucci’s influence on popular civilization can also be considered unique.
Another provocation lies in the fusion of Sabato De Sarno’s personal style and Gucci’s abstract approach. From this London vacation show, Sabato De Sarno seems to reject reconcilism.
This approach is not without precedent in the luxury goods industry. The first series released by Hedi Slimane after joining Celine as the creative director has sparked significant controversy. He quickly integrated his plans, starting from the French bourgeois style of the mid-20th century and using softer abstractions to create an excessive contrast with his predecessor Phoebe Philo’s creativity, ultimately stabilizing the emotional appeal of the mall.
As the transformation process progresses, Gucci will not only inherit the integration of current abstraction and history, but also promote more refined actions in its sales channels. After the release of its 2023 financial report, Heyun Group stated that it will not increase the deduction amount for Gucci’s products and plans to open its department’s Olay store as early as 2024.
In fact, the reduction of sales channels has been the focus of Gucci’s continuous actions to this day, which is to further grasp brand abstraction and improve cost expenditure by reducing the proportion of retail sales. It can be clearly seen that the number of third-party foot buying stores selling Gucci is increasing, and there are very few selected foot buying partners who stop offering significant discounts on the products they sell.
At the same time, similar to other top brands, Gucci is also paying a deep price to the high net worth population. The brand’s first private salon was closed in Los Angeles in April 2023. But compared to other brands, Gucci’s actions can still be faster – Louis Vuitton, Chanel, and smaller brands like Putida and Loro Piana have created private salons in multiple cities in China.