Gucci

Gucci, luxury fashion house based in Florence. Founded in 1921 by Guccio Gucci, the company began as a leather goods and luggage retailer before rapidly expanding under the direction of Gucci’s sons. The company went public in 1995 after a long and dramatic period of family infighting and is now owned by the French multinational corporation Kering. Gucci is considered one of the foremost luxury fashion brands in the world, operating more than 500 stores worldwide and generating revenue of more than €10.5 billion ($11 billion [U.S.]) in 2022.

Before he founded Gucci, Guccio Gucci worked as a bellboy at the Savoy Hotel in London. It was there—so the story goes—that he became enamored with the luxury suitcases carried by the city’s aristocrats. Upon returning to Italy, Gucci worked for the luggage brand Franzi, during which time he learned to work with leather. In 1921 Gucci opened his first retail location on Florence’s Via della Vigna Nuova, where he began selling his leather goods and luggage. He later expanded into selling equestrian accessories. Gucci’s four sons, Aldo, Vasco, Rodolfo, and Ugo (his adopted stepson), were soon brought into the family business. (Although Gucci had a daughter, Grimalda, she was not included in the business.) In 1935 the League of Nations imposed an embargo on Mussolini’s Italy, greatly inhibiting the import of leather. This forced Gucci to find alternative materials for his growing line of luxury items. The Gucci workshop developed a new material out of woven hemp sourced from Naples to cope with the embargo. The brand’s first commercially successful bags were made from this canapa and featured the now iconic brown-on-tan diamond pattern. In 1938 Gucci opened a storefront in Rome.

After World War II, Gucci began a period of expansion and innovation. Due to a postwar leather shortage, Gucci imported bamboo from Japan to create the iconic bamboo-handled bag. The bag was popular and became a status symbol of sorts in the following decades. In that same period of innovation, Aldo Gucci designed the company’s first pigskin bag, and Rodolfo Gucci opened a storefront in Milan in 1951. In 1952 Aldo Gucci opened a Gucci store at the Savoy Plaza Hotel in New York City. Guccio Gucci died shortly after the New York store’s opening, and ownership of the company was subsequently divided among Gucci’s three biological sons, who allegedly prevented Ugo from having a stake in the Gucci empire. In 1953 the fashion house released the Gucci loafer, featuring a metal horse bit—a nod to the company’s roots in equestrian accessories.

In 1961 Gucci opened stores in London and Palm Beach, Florida. About the same time, American first lady and fashion icon Jacqueline Kennedy was seen carrying a Gucci bag, helping to further popularize the brand. The bag was later named the Jackie and became one of the 1970s’ most-photographed bags. The early 1960s also saw Gucci adopt the now famous double-G logo, designed by Aldo Gucci, and open a store in Paris. In the 1970s Gucci opened stores in Tokyo and Hong Kong alongside a second location in New York.

The 1980s were particularly tumultuous for Gucci, as long-simmering family feuds came to a head. In 1980 one of Aldo’s sons, Paolo Gucci, attempted to launch new fashion lines using the family name. Other family members were enraged and filed a series of lawsuits to prevent Paolo’s offshoot from being recognized. Although his plan was eventually blocked, the rift kicked off a series of increasingly public familial spats. In 1982, a year after Gucci’s first fashion show, Paolo filed a $13.3 million lawsuit against five other family members after they allegedly attacked him physically at a board meeting. That same year, Gucci’s leadership opted to take the company public, hoping to alleviate some discord. Rodolfo Gucci began to direct the brand soon after. In 1983, however, he died, passing his majority stake to his son, Maurizio.

Maurizio Gucci envisioned a luxury relaunch of the family business and thought that his uncle Aldo’s focus on mass production had greatly weakened the brand. He undertook legal actions to push his uncle out of the company, and the family descended back into conflict. In 1986 Aldo pleaded guilty to tax evasion and spent a year in a Florida prison. Maurizio was accused of forging his father’s signature to avoid paying inheritance taxes and fled to Switzerland, though he was later acquitted. In 1989, with the company in total disarray, Maurizio Gucci and Bahrain-based investment bank Investcorp acquired a majority stake of Gucci, essentially bringing the long family feud to an end.

In 1989 Bergdorf Goodman president Dawn Mello was brought in to revive Gucci. She in turn hired American fashion designer Tom Ford to manage the ready-to-wear collection; he later became the brand’s creative director. Under Ford’s direction, the company’s image was revitalized and once again became synonymous with luxury and celebrity. In 1993 Maurizio Gucci sold the rest of his shares in the company to Investcorp. Two years later, he was shot dead in Milan. His ex-wife, Patrizia Reggiani, was accused of orchestrating the murder because of bitterness related to Maurizio selling the family business. She was convicted three years later and was sentenced to 29 years in prison, though she was released after 18 years. During her trial, she maintained her innocence. However, when she was later asked why she had hired a hit man, Reggiani answered, “My eyesight is not so good—I didn’t want to miss.” Maurizio’s murder and other elements of the family feud were later dramatized in Ridley Scott’s 2021 film House of Gucci.

In 1998 and 1999, French luxury goods conglomerate LVMH (which owns Louis Vuitton, Dior, and Givenchy) slowly began to amass stakes in Gucci before attempting a takeover. Gucci’s leadership accused LVMH of unfair business practices. Seeing an opportunity for its own takeover, LVMH rival PPR swooped in and acquired a majority stake in Gucci, prompting a series of public legal confrontations. Eventually, PPR won out and, having changed its name to Kering in 2013, owns Gucci as of 2023. In 2006 Frida Giannini became Gucci’s creative director. She has been credited with bringing many of Gucci’s classic designs back into circulation. She was succeeded in 2015 by Alessandro Michele, who helped the brand gain traction among younger generations. In 2023 Sabato de Sarno took over as the brand’s creative director. Gucci, despite its troubled last half century, remains one of the foremost brands in the luxury fashion world.