Sabato De Sarno - Designer, Creative Director of Gucci

[GivenchyHomme]

He is unbelievable. Just look at everyone around him. What a clown!

 

[Mody]

To think he would at least have some integrity with his menswear is clearly my misjudgement.
He is probably laughing at all the criticism all the way to the bank as if the work he has done remotely showed any effort on his part to design.
Hats off to the thick skin, boy clearly got his priority straight

 

[AVC]

He is unbelievable. Just look at everyone around him. What a clown!

I honestly do not understand this kind of criticism. His shows may suck, but what does him dancing because he’s happy have anything to do with anything? This just seems hateful for no reason.

 

[GivenchyHomme]

I honestly do not understand this kind of criticism. His shows may suck, but what does him dancing because he’s happy have anything to do with anything? This just seems hateful for no reason.

His behavior is unjustified; he's arrogant, defensive, and self-absorbed. It doesn't help that the work is consistently lazy and mediocre. Despite being in such a precarious position, one would expect him to show humility and restraint. Instead, he's parading around as if he just presented the collection of the year, despite the fact that sales are continuing to plummet and numerous rumors flying around that he's going to be replaced in the coming months. There is nothing hateful about speaking the truth. A designer should hold themselves to certain standard. I just don't see that behavior as professional, and I'm not the only one that feels that way.

 

[Frederic01]

Gucci: What Future Is Now?​

One year into designer Sabato De Sarno’s tenure, the brand has yet to tell a compelling fashion story. Monday’s sophomore menswear collection was no exception.

By ROBERT WILLIAMS / 18th June 2024

BOF

 

[tourbillions]

his behavior screams all drugged up and just making through this.

 

[IloveDiorHomme]

No one cares to post the collection on the forum haha.
What's there more to say ?

 

[tomtakesphotos]

what if everyone is tearing him apart but really the things we dislike is all directives from the suits behind the scenes? maybe even the choice in hiring him, someone they can just control? the BOF article struck me that soon these big houses could just be run by the bean counters..

 

[aracic]

His behavior is unjustified; he's arrogant, defensive, and self-absorbed. It doesn't help that the work is consistently lazy and mediocre. Despite being in such a precarious position, one would expect him to show humility and restraint. Instead, he's parading around as if he just presented the collection of the year, despite the fact that sales are continuing to plummet and numerous rumors flying around that he's going to be replaced in the coming months. There is nothing hateful about speaking the truth. A designer should hold themselves to certain standard. I just don't see that behavior as professional, and I'm not the only one that feels that way.

This is so ridiculous to me lmao What do you want him to do, go on a live stream to repent on his knees? Be real. He's just a guy enjoying a fabulous job that he perhaps wasn't suited for, but you have to direct your hatred towards someone else over that decision. And uploading a video to YouTube to make fun of a guy for having a happy little dance, titled ''The dancing fool'' is peak hater behaviour. Peak. He seems like a fun guy, let him live.

 

[donyan]

what if everyone is tearing him apart but really the things we dislike is all directives from the suits behind the scenes? maybe even the choice in hiring him, someone they can just control? the BOF article struck me that soon these big houses could just be run by the bean counters..

Can anyone post this please ? I can’t get behind the paywall

 

[GivenchyHomme]

This is so ridiculous to me lmao What do you want him to do, go on a live stream to repent on his knees? Be real. He's just a guy enjoying a fabulous job that he perhaps wasn't suited for, but you have to direct your hatred towards someone else over that decision. And uploading a video to YouTube to make fun of a guy for having a happy little dance, titled ''The dancing fool'' is peak hater behaviour. Peak. He seems like a fun guy, let him live.

I never said I hated him. Not once. I said I hate how he behaves. If the work he produced was worth celebrating I would eat my words, but it’s not and there is no denying that. Would you defend Sean McGirr acting the same way as Sabato after presenting that first McQueen collection? Or would it be okay because he’s simply “living his best life”?

 

[KoV]

This is so ridiculous to me lmao What do you want him to do, go on a live stream to repent on his knees? Be real. He's just a guy enjoying a fabulous job that he perhaps wasn't suited for, but you have to direct your hatred towards someone else over that decision. And uploading a video to YouTube to make fun of a guy for having a happy little dance, titled ''The dancing fool'' is peak hater behaviour. Peak. He seems like a fun guy, let him live.

Finally some reason!

So much of the criticism here towards designers and others in the industry is so nasty and personal. Maybe it’s always been that way and I’m sure I’ve added to it at times but lately it feels to me as though it’s reached a fever pitch and following these threads can turn into a miserable experience.

 

[avonlea002]

Sabato has done things that are worth criticizing but I really don't get how him dancing/ having a moment of joy backstage is bad. Doing a show is always stressful, even if the actual collection is mediocre.

 

[susseinmcswanny]

Usually when I hate someone I’m either 1) jealous or 2) hate myself lol. Or both lol. If it’s about critiquing his work it’s fair to say you don’t like an idea he has or how he executes it, but in this case he’s just in charge of like society blanket merch. Gucci isn’t gonna give someone Tom Ford level creative control at this time. That’s why they fired Alessandro. There’s no reason to be so mean about him smiling or dancing 😭

 

[PDFSD]

Can anyone post this please ? I can’t get behind the paywall

Gucci: What Future Is Now?​

One year into designer Sabato De Sarno’s tenure, the brand has yet to tell a compelling fashion story. Monday’s sophomore menswear collection was no exception.

MILAN — Gucci presented its second menswear collection by creative director Sabato De Sarno in Milan Monday.

Where his January debut in the category had proposed a relatively muted palette of sensual, sartorial silhouettes, the Spring/Summer 2025 outing saw the designer incorporate more exuberant colours, prints and textures. An absinthe leather coat opened the show, followed by mesh going-out tops in carnation and plum, tangerine bags and lilac sneakers. Those colour-blocked silhouettes were interspersed with more classic tailoring, as well as a range of camp shirts rendered in wilfully garish prints, in which the predictable vocabulary of dolphins, surfboards and banana leaves got a fresh twist from high-contrast, essentialist tessellations.

The more sporty, colourful lineup could appease clients who have grown attached to Gucci’s identity as the fun luxury megabrand. That positioning has eroded somewhat during a year of palete-cleansing efforts aimed at reasserting the brand’s heritage and the lasting value of its iconic products.

Gucci Spring/Summer 2025 Menswear (Spotlight/)
The show was unlikely, however, to reassure stakeholders who are growing impatient for Gucci and De Sarno to tell a more expansive fashion story that goes beyond proposing desirable items, which is only part of the job at a brand at Gucci’s scale.



Monday’s collection was staged in the atrium of Milan’s Triennale Museum in an echo of Gucci’s May womenswear show at the Tate Modern, gestures apparently aimed at aligning the brand with modern and contemporary creation. But there were no works on display at the closed museum (where guests were confined to the atrium), no installations staged or artworks commissioned to foster a dialogue with the unique setting, excepting a quote from Saint Augustine about “love without measure” which was inscribed on the museum steps, but only visible from above. We could have been anywhere.

Gucci Spring/Summer 2025 Menswear (Spotlight/)

That left us with only the collection to consider: a concise range of 46 looks in 8 minutes, which one might also have seen at any number of brands. The boxy, utilitarian camp shirts and short shorts felt lifted from Prada, while the colour-blocked creative tailoring ensembles, while desirable, carried more than a whiff of Pierpaolo Piccioli’s Valentino. Logoed lanyards, the occasional embossed monogram, carabiners and horse-bit hardware on leather goods were the only clear signs that we were at GuccI, along with the heightened sense of refinement that De Sarno has brought to the house since his September debut.

To be fair, “get in, look at clothes, get out,” is often the brief at Milan fashion shows (in contrast to the immersive experiences regularly staged by French megabrands, or by Italian outlier Prada). And De Sarno faces an uphill battle to find fresh angles on Gucci’s archive after eight years of former designer Alessandro Michele’s maximalist approach, during which an exhaustive menu of the brand’s codes and signatures were piled on simultaneously, and repeated season after season to the point of customer fatigue. The solutions may lie outside Gucci’s garden.

Profits are also under pressure as a broad slowdown in luxury demand heaps additional difficulty on Gucci’s plan to simultaneously hone a more stable upmarket image, while transitioning to a new designer’s vision. As such, whether the brand’s reduced scope of action stems from a lack of clear direction on De Sarno’s part, or from a lack of resources and vision elsewhere in the business is unclear.

Perhaps Gucci believes it can no longer afford to tell stories? With sales down 20 percent in the first quarter, one might just as easily say that they can’t afford not to. Efforts to spotlight De Sarno’s dialogue with 20th century Milanese creation, including an art book and recent capsule celebrating iconic Italian furniture design, seem calibrated for a small segment of Gucci’s audience.

An inscription on the museum’s wall stated that “the future has never been so present.” On the last day of an Italian menswear season where front-row chatter focused on concern over slowing sales, soaring prices and static creativity, and as a backdrop to a diminished outing for the country’s biggest brand, that maxim was hardly reassuring.

 

[donyan]

Gucci: What Future Is Now?​

One year into designer Sabato De Sarno’s tenure, the brand has yet to tell a compelling fashion story. Monday’s sophomore menswear collection was no exception.

MILAN — Gucci presented its second menswear collection by creative director Sabato De Sarno in Milan Monday.

Where his January debut in the category had proposed a relatively muted palette of sensual, sartorial silhouettes, the Spring/Summer 2025 outing saw the designer incorporate more exuberant colours, prints and textures. An absinthe leather coat opened the show, followed by mesh going-out tops in carnation and plum, tangerine bags and lilac sneakers. Those colour-blocked silhouettes were interspersed with more classic tailoring, as well as a range of camp shirts rendered in wilfully garish prints, in which the predictable vocabulary of dolphins, surfboards and banana leaves got a fresh twist from high-contrast, essentialist tessellations.

The more sporty, colourful lineup could appease clients who have grown attached to Gucci’s identity as the fun luxury megabrand. That positioning has eroded somewhat during a year of palete-cleansing efforts aimed at reasserting the brand’s heritage and the lasting value of its iconic products.

Gucci Spring/Summer 2025 Menswear (Spotlight/)
The show was unlikely, however, to reassure stakeholders who are growing impatient for Gucci and De Sarno to tell a more expansive fashion story that goes beyond proposing desirable items, which is only part of the job at a brand at Gucci’s scale.



Monday’s collection was staged in the atrium of Milan’s Triennale Museum in an echo of Gucci’s May womenswear show at the Tate Modern, gestures apparently aimed at aligning the brand with modern and contemporary creation. But there were no works on display at the closed museum (where guests were confined to the atrium), no installations staged or artworks commissioned to foster a dialogue with the unique setting, excepting a quote from Saint Augustine about “love without measure” which was inscribed on the museum steps, but only visible from above. We could have been anywhere.

Gucci Spring/Summer 2025 Menswear (Spotlight/)

That left us with only the collection to consider: a concise range of 46 looks in 8 minutes, which one might also have seen at any number of brands. The boxy, utilitarian camp shirts and short shorts felt lifted from Prada, while the colour-blocked creative tailoring ensembles, while desirable, carried more than a whiff of Pierpaolo Piccioli’s Valentino. Logoed lanyards, the occasional embossed monogram, carabiners and horse-bit hardware on leather goods were the only clear signs that we were at GuccI, along with the heightened sense of refinement that De Sarno has brought to the house since his September debut.

To be fair, “get in, look at clothes, get out,” is often the brief at Milan fashion shows (in contrast to the immersive experiences regularly staged by French megabrands, or by Italian outlier Prada). And De Sarno faces an uphill battle to find fresh angles on Gucci’s archive after eight years of former designer Alessandro Michele’s maximalist approach, during which an exhaustive menu of the brand’s codes and signatures were piled on simultaneously, and repeated season after season to the point of customer fatigue. The solutions may lie outside Gucci’s garden.

Profits are also under pressure as a broad slowdown in luxury demand heaps additional difficulty on Gucci’s plan to simultaneously hone a more stable upmarket image, while transitioning to a new designer’s vision. As such, whether the brand’s reduced scope of action stems from a lack of clear direction on De Sarno’s part, or from a lack of resources and vision elsewhere in the business is unclear.

Perhaps Gucci believes it can no longer afford to tell stories? With sales down 20 percent in the first quarter, one might just as easily say that they can’t afford not to. Efforts to spotlight De Sarno’s dialogue with 20th century Milanese creation, including an art book and recent capsule celebrating iconic Italian furniture design, seem calibrated for a small segment of Gucci’s audience.

An inscription on the museum’s wall stated that “the future has never been so present.” On the last day of an Italian menswear season where front-row chatter focused on concern over slowing sales, soaring prices and static creativity, and as a backdrop to a diminished outing for the country’s biggest brand, that maxim was hardly reassuring.

Thank you for posting. Is there a really a possibility that his hands are tied? I don’t know enough about how it works inside Fashion Companies but as Creative Director you surely have the last word right?

 

[JoCaderone]

Seems like BoF hate his work as much as us do

 

[aracic]

I never said I hated him. Not once. I said I hate how he behaves. If the work he produced was worth celebrating I would eat my words, but it’s not and there is no denying that. Would you defend Sean McGirr acting the same way as Sabato after presenting that first McQueen collection? Or would it be okay because he’s simply “living his best life”?

What designer would admit failure and criticise their own work, or act depressed after a show because people haven't received it well? Like I genuinely don't understand this thought process, it's so unrealistic. He probably did his best, if it's in his character to celebrate with a little dance, who are we to judge him? I am in no way trying to defend his work, the fact that his best might be such an underwhelming offering of bland merchandise is alarming and depressing. But the personal attacks on his character are uncalled for.

 

[GivenchyHomme]

What designer would admit failure and criticise their own work, or act depressed after a show because people haven't received it well? Like I genuinely don't understand this thought process, it's so unrealistic. He probably did his best, if it's in his character to celebrate with a little dance, who are we to judge him? I am in no way trying to defend his work, the fact that his best might be such an underwhelming offering of bland merchandise is alarming and depressing. But the personal attacks on his character are uncalled for.

We can agree to disagree. All I am going to say is that there is a humble and respectful way to present yourself on social media, in interviews, and in person and I don't think he has.

 

[Olaffo]

I don’t think that by “closing his eyes” (dancing, embracing criticism as a part of his job and natural process of journey to, eventually, appreciating his work) will get him far away. People are rolling their eyes simply because he turned out to be a failure not because they don’t understand his aesthetics. Gucci was the only one show in MFW that finale has not being recorded by influencers. Silly little thing but tells a lot about the perception of the audience which btw has been paid to sit in that first row.

Giving usual benefit of the doubt and being fair in criticism has been applied here and I think he should be fired as soon as possible and replaced by a proper designer with a strong (however divisive) pov. I’d pay Fabio any money to come here and sort out that mess.