Gucci Designer Sabato De Sarno on Miley Cyrus’ Bag, Commercial Pressures and Runway Showmanship
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Gucci’s financial turnaround may still be a work in progress, but a year in, and just ahead of his fall 2024 women’s runway, creative director Sabato De Sarno is putting the pieces in place.
His first women’s runway collection just hit stores, offering a sexy, Italian spin on fashion’s minimalist moment with rich-looking camel-hued outerwear, embossed GG miniskirts and covetable glossy red accessories, including elevated platform loafers, and early reports indicate it’s selling well, including at the renovated SoHo store, feted during New York Fashion Week.
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He’s kept the luxury house in the game on the Hollywood red carpet his first awards season with Taylor Swift donning acid green Gucci sequins at the Golden Globes, and Miley Cyrus, in a custom Gucci chocolate brown sequin thigh-high slit gown, hilariously bringing her Gucci Bamboo 1947 handbag up to the podium with her when she accepted a Grammy.
Was it planned? “Lots of people have asked me that,” De Sarno laughed, speaking during a collection preview. “No…but she’s fabulous and a very smart woman,” said the designer, who met her over the summer in Los Angeles while shooting the latest Flora fragrance campaign, her last for the house as it reshuffles its celebrity deck. (At Friday’s show, Mark Ronson and Grace Gummer, Kirsten Dunst, Maude Apatow, Romy Madley Croft, Solange and Julia Garner were there, among others.)
Now fully relocated from Rome to a home in Milan’s Porto Vittoria neighborhood that he bought six years ago, and working every day at the Gucci Hub, De Sarno, who is 40, feels more in sync with his design team than when he started. He knows his first women’s collection wasn’t a slam dunk with all critics and is fine with that.
“Even today I would have done the same thing,” De Sarno said. “I think it’s normal, there are many things I love, most I don’t. September was my first show, now it’s better because I know my team better. Gucci is big and they did a lot before me, very important things for the last 20 years with Tom Ford, Frida Giannini, Alessandra Facchinetti, Alessandro [Michele] — they all did something for the company. Now it’s my turn. I am more simple maybe yes, but what’s wrong with simple?”
His teams were close by during previews, as he spoke about his core brand vision of classic-meets-contemporary tailoring, shared what’s new for fall in shoes (equestrian boots, some over-the-knee sexy, and platform Horsebit loafer sandals in fun colors); bags (a half-moon shape with top handle, and the pillowy soft GG Milano he designed after arriving in Milan in December), and jewelry (an archival studded choker mounted on ribbon).
Kering’s recovery strategy involves cultivating more brand exclusivity to court top spenders, and Gucci prices are increasing. But the materials and techniques warrant it, De Sarno said. “My Jackie bag has a leather [not silk] lining. The price is like two bags but there are some pieces that stay with you forever. This isn’t just for one show and that’s it.”
The overall idea for fall 2024 was to find the compromise between wearable and the subtly subversive, with an emphasis on slow luxury, craft, softness and the personal. (Invitations to the show were Ancora red leather notebooks from the historic Milanese stationery store Pettinaroli, where De Sarno shops often as a frequent letter writer.)
“I started from things I don’t want to say I hate, but I don’t really love. I don’t really love embroidery. I don’t really love color. I’m very classic,” he said, looking down at his work uniform of a black Gucci sweatshirt, jeans and Doc Martens. “Colors I love are red, gray, blue. Colors I hate are cream, brown and strange fluorescents that are difficult to wear. This collection you find all these together in combinations that I like.”
De Sarno talked through the rigorous construction of his clothes, and his ideas about the best way to show them.
Take as an example a precision-cut black wool crepe jacket, shaped at the waist and fastened with a slim GG logo belt over short-shorts with equestrian boots.
“It’s the perfect jacket, body-con…like from the ’60s, it looks like a knit but it’s not a knit, it’s a technical thing,” he said, also pointing out a great-looking long, olive green utility skirt in the same substantial wool crepe, with sexy side slits and topped with a delicate lace chiffon camisole.
“To me quality is the first thing because I know if you put on sparkly things or ruffles, it’s an easy way to get a ‘wow,'” he said. “But the fashion show is a precise, technical moment where you need to be focused. That’s why my show I don’t think ever will have a set or a performance. It’s something I love and appreciated when my colleagues did it, but it’s not my story.”
Outerwear has a distinctive feature — a covered placket and hidden buttoning in the back, so it can be worn sliding off the shoulders — for that paparazzi snap, perhaps.
“We make this to hug your body,” De Sarno continued, showing the curving seams shaping the back of a peacoat. “Maybe you don’t see it in the show, it’s harder to see in eight seconds, but it’s part of my process.”
A long black strapless bustier dress also has structure and sartorial heft. “I love the way you can wear this dress with boots. It changes completely the look of eveningwear. It’s not so precious,” he said. “I deliver an idea, but in the end I like when the clothes go on people, the personality they put inside. They give pieces life. I’m very interested in real life.”
This season, Gucci has more for those who love bold color and embellishment. See the dazzling sequin dégradé embroidery on a black peacoat, the geometric jacquards that have hidden heron birds in them, Art Deco-looking velvet flower intarsias on lace slipdresses and metallic fringe on his version of a twin set — a cozy-luxe cardigan and HotPants.
“I was not sure about the knitwear. It was nice as a shape but not something I loved, but we put embroidery on top to make the color more alive,” he said of another cute set in a more structured knit, in a light blue with aquamarine over embroidered multidimensional sequins.
The diversified offerings should appeal to a wider range of customers — jet-setting young stars, yes, but also their mothers and grandmothers. (Pants, along with HotPants, will be sold in the stores, De Sarno said.)
Kering is prepared for a year of investing in its elevation strategy to see substantial gains against slowing luxury spending. The group’s fourth-quarter results fell 6 percent to 4.97 billion euros, representing a decline of 4 percent in comparable terms. Organic sales at Gucci fell 4 percent, on the lower end of market forecasts, but did not reflect sales of De Sarno’s debut collection.
“Of course, I feel responsibility, you see how many people work with me, how many families are on me. But I don’t want to please people. If you like it, OK. If I’m no good, you can change, but I want to be free. People say I got a list from Kering because Gucci had to become more commercial. You know what, before Gucci was more commercial than this. It was selling tracksuits, sneakers and T-shirts.…This is me and the clothes I love to do.”
Remarkably, De Sarno puts it all in perspective in a way that’s refreshing: “This is the most incredible experience of my life. If it finished tomorrow morning, it’s OK. Because my life is more interesting than my job.”
Words to live by.
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