Sabato De Sarno - Designer, Creative Director of Gucci

[jeanclaude]

I'm not saying anything and I have no "opinion" on this. It's just a marketing plan that may or might not work.
Gucci needs their core client back and they will get him back sooner or later, with or without Di Sarno.
Fashion is all about clever or not so clever marketing moves & communication strategies. It's not about clothes or designers.

That´s the big mistake here. No CEO nor marketing campaigns are going to revive a brand. The only way of reviving a brand is through a designer able to do it. If the final product (clothes and accessories) is not desirable, there is nothing it can be done.

Kering do not want to see that the big problem is Sabato. They insist on keeping him, while changing everyone around him...but the problem is Ancora guy, as he is unfit to revive Gucci.

Remember that Gucci was revamped from the ashes by a designer called Tom Ford, not by a new CEO nor a miraculous marketing campaign. How Tom managed to do it?? By creating desirable products (and for that you need talent, not marketing strategies) .

 

[nationalsalt]

Assuming Pinault and Co. had a good idea of Sabato De Sarno's design style before they hired him, do you think they were actively seeking a designer who would make clothes with higher profit margins than Michele's?

Totally spitballing here, but I can only imagine that his vastly simpler garments would be somewhat easier and cheaper to produce than Michele's, therefore - assuming they still retail at similar price points - giving the execs a higher ROI per piece.

Obviously, this strategy hasn't quite panned out...but I'm wondering if the blame lies solely with De Sarno.

Thoughts?

 

[jeanclaude]

Obviously, this strategy hasn't quite panned out...but I'm wondering if the blame lies solely with De Sarno.

The blame lies in the execs, who chose to hire Sabato as CD, when it is obvious he is not fit for the job.

 

[sunnysideup]

Assuming Pinault and Co. had a good idea of Sabato De Sarno's design style before they hired him, do you think they were actively seeking a designer who would make clothes with higher profit margins than Michele's?

Totally spitballing here, but I can only imagine that his vastly simpler garments would be somewhat easier and cheaper to produce than Michele's, therefore - assuming they still retail at similar price points - giving the execs a higher ROI per piece.

Obviously, this strategy hasn't quite panned out...but I'm wondering if the blame lies solely with De Sarno.

Thoughts?

That was probably an added benefit in consideration as minimalism and a race to pared down basics is much cheaper to produce than embellished, decadence-dripped excess maximalism.

We’ve seen this in their bags already: the lower (low?) quality Blondie replaced the much more sumptuous Disco bag. Blondie costs more but is a definite downgrade in quality.

These luxury brands should have quality at the forefront—they must be obsessed with it to justify their offer and price point. You will only get away with quality and rarefied material deterioration for so long.

For example, many of these brands no longer produce fur and exotics NOT because of their supposed sustainability but because those materials are more expensive and difficult to source and produce. Those raw materials are more volatile and expensive to scale. So now we get polyester faux fur that will be in landfills for thousands of years at real fur prices.

 

[brandon J pierre]

Who would be good for this brand?

 

[FashionPower]

I don't get all the hate posts regarding "Ancora guy" since Gucci's current mess is not because of Di Sarno who's just a "safe" -not a brilliant - choice. Gucci trouble started with Alessandro's repeated styling tricks. I wonder why they hired him at Valentino, makes absolutely no sense to me.

That's what I have been saying since the beginning but people bashing me in the forum for no reason...I provide FACTS!
Michele cheapified the brand in a way that it is going to be impossible for Gucci to retrieve its elevated status
If you look at Michele's bestsellers you can easily get an idea of what the actual customer buying his offerings was:
- Fur slippers
- Dyonisus bag, the only good bestseller from his tenure...but it's something coming from Tom Ford's era
- Marmont bag: basically an elevated Guess bag in terms of design and leather quality with a GG clasp
- Gucci x Adidas collab items (worse than Fendace to me)
- Gucci sneakers
- Embellished / flashy tracksuits and hoodies

Gucci bestsellers under Michele, despite the fashion circus praising him for making Gucci look more youthful and modern, were basically an elevated Philipp Plein, very bad boy hunting for hookers while smoking a blunt and strolling around in their fine tuned BMWs. It's easy to increase profits and marging by selling 1k hoodies to bad boy willing to flex that GG logo...Jeffree Star in 2018 anyone?



The disconnection and disjoint between the look proposal on the runway and the clothes actually purchased in the stores was insane, even worse than Louis Vuitton by Ghesquiere (with avant garde pieces on the runway and basic A line monogram dresses in the store).
Remember that what makes these brands profitable is not Anna Wintour and the Vogue team praising the designer, but the dumb people who buy status symbol items with the lowest production costs and the greatest margins.

 

[tourbillions]

Who would be good for this brand?

hedi... he will be great for gucci since after michele and ancora... gucci is a clean slate. He can easily guccify his slimane. Dunno if he wanna work with kering again though..

gucci needs sexy and easy clothes. Otherwise vauthier will be amazing for gucci.

 

[Xone]