This week Gucci’s creative director Alessandro Michele was honoured at British Fashion Awards with the International Designer of the Year accolade. At the ceremony Michele acknowledged the unorthodoxy of his appointment last January, when the Italian fashion house replaced Frida Giannini with an unknown name: “They had the courage and the foolish act to appoint an unknown guy like me as the creative director of one of the most influential fashion houses in the world,” Michele told the audience. “Over ten thousand thanks,” he added. “One for each Gucci employee all over the world.”
But Gucci, too, is thankful. The house has seen stellar sales and this week the company’s chief executive office Marco Bizzarri stated Gucci would not put Michele’s first two collections in the end of season markdown.
Gucci, which posted revenues of around 3.5 billion euros, makes most of its
profits from accessories and perfumes, as most fashion houses. Michele’s
ready-to-wear, however, has brought a new customer to its stores, and with
his autumn winter 2015 collections only having recently been available,
Bizzarri wants to give them as much time at full price on the shopfloor as
possible.
“First of all, I wanted to give the collection of Alessandro the
longest-possible time at full price in the shop. It’s so new for our
company; so new for him,” Bizzarri says, of this break with retail
tradition. As the US gears up for Black Friday, fashion houses will
markdown their Autumn/Winter collections this week. “I think it’s too early
to put them on markdown now. Alessandro’s fashion show collection started
arriving in August, so two months and a half later, I didn’t want to do
this kind of action now,” he says. Michele’s Autumn/Winter 2015 collection
began arriving in stores in June, and early deliveries of Cruise followed
in August, three months ahead of the usual seasonal schedule.
According to Bizzarri, discounting the Autumn/Winter 2015 men’s and women’s
collections would have little impact on sales: “The full-price sell-through
is super high, so even if I put them on sale now, the impact on sales would
be tiny,” he says. “The impact on the image would be too big,” he says,
emphasising the new interest in Gucci that Michele has stirred up. “We’re
seeing a lot of new clients, a lot of new customers — different, younger,
more fashion-forward — buying the collection, but not losing the previous
ones.”
So, what will happen to the leftover stock? “Let’s see. We have outlets. We
don’t know yet,” says Bizzarri. “What is important to say is that we didn’t
buy dramatically high when we bought the collection of Alessandro in the
beginning. The full sell-through was very, very high, so we don’t have a
lot left, frankly.” The discount strategy for Michele’s first cruise
collection, which is beginning to arrive in stores now, will be assessed in
June.
As the collections have taken a different turn under its new creative
director, the Gucci stores are also getting a makeover. Michele’s retail
concept has already been adopted in the company’s Milan flagship store on
Via Montenapoleone, as well as Hong Kong and Seoul. Elsewhere London’s Bond
Street will be renovated in time for Gucci’s Cruise show in the UK.
Having only been appointed this year, Michele’s success hasn’t seen
longevity and if the designer can keep the momentum remains to be seen.
“Now, the challenge that we have, the two of us, myself and Alessandro, is
to keep on pushing ourselves to innovate as Alessandro innovated at the
very beginning, and take risks,” says Bizzarri. “Always try to challenge
our team and our people, and we always need to be at the front, at the edge
of innovation. Keep on risking. Don’t try to play safe.”
Images: Gucci AW15