Sabato De Sarno - Designer, Creative Director of Gucci

[FashionPower]

I highly disagree. The marketing from Gucci has been disastrous - from the bad bunny / kendall ad to the lack of focus on handbag campaigns, to the flip flop from Daria to the basic white Zara-ad backgrounds… are you saying the marketing was great and it’s solely a poor product that caused Ancora to crash?

Blame artistic director Riccardo Zanola for that, literally the blandest and most basic gay working in high fashion.
Sabato's offering is not the best to begin with, but paired with that non existent artistic direction...recipe for disaster.
The Kendall and Bad Bunny ad with them flying commercial is literally the worst concept one could have ever conceived.

 

[sunnysideup]

Blame artistic director Riccardo Zanola for that, literally the blandest and most basic gay working in high fashion.
Sabato's offering is not the best to begin with, but paired with that non existent artistic direction...recipe for disaster.
The Kendall and Bad Bunny ad with them flying commercial is literally the worst concept one could have ever conceived.

They went out the gate with BB and KJ, which turned out to be an early colossal blunder. After that, there were ads featuring “the pool” with a bunch of products in the water, followed by Zara and Express-style photography. All of it made me want to actively avoid Gucci.

The new Blondie campaign is an improvement, but it's still not great.

Additionally, when they introduced the Ancora focus with SDS, it came across as arrogant, prompting me to mute the brand's messaging—“love Gucci again” and “fall in love with Gucci again.” Um, hello? I already love Gucci and have purchased quite a bit of AM-designed pieces. That arrogance felt short-sighted and offensive to loyal customers. On top of that, SDS can’t seem to do an interview without sounding pompous and insufferable.

I don’t like it when executives and designers talk too much. Just let the product speak for itself. I understand that the business needs to comment on earnings, but aside from that, I prefer them to remain silent. If designers or company representatives are going to speak, I want their comments to be humble, positive, and appreciative of their clients, employees, and other stakeholders. That's it, plain and simple.

The only one who could get away with controversial statements was Karl Lagerfeld, and even in those cases, I mostly agreed with him. Even when I didn’t agree, I could never deny that he had a strong point of view.

 

[yslforever]

Imho the Valigiera campaign with Bad Bunny was bad but not the worst: the price point of those luggage isn’t entry level so the campaign was targeting higher revenues (and failed miserably)
The Lido campaign was much more damaging for the brand image, it was just a $350 monogrammed cap sticking out of water, the kind one can find at $15 on a market and on every other Uber deliverers’ heads. It’s so ghetto.
That’s when I realized their «brand elevation » was just talk and they had no intention to try.

 

[Phuel]

^^^This Gucci era is so marketing-by-numbers blandingly instaforgettable in every output, I genuinely have no memory of these campaigns everyone is speaking of: I do remember the shot of Daria self-comforting by a pool, but other than that, nothing.

Never cared for Alessandro’s wallflower dorks playing dressup, knocking off thrifstore and Dapper Dan finds either. But those campaigns were constantly solid as a rock from the beginning to the end of his era. Such an invaluable education in the power of branding. It’s stunningly ignorant and tragically hilarious why the Gucci empire can’t learn from what is right in front of them— or simply apply common sense that any design/marketing student would clearly see. How this multi-billion dollar corporation had no worldbuilidng groundwork prepared can only be down to not giving a fcuk. As reliably mediocre as Sabato is, he can’t be entirely blamed for the pathetic nothingness that's current-era Gucci presence.

What’s so blatantly revealing of this weakness for this Gucci era is the glaring lack of identity, personality and attitude. Alessandro’s logo-heavy leftovers are still carrying the brand at retail— now mixed with some knockoff-looking, watered-down revisions of Tom’s monogrammed archival scatterings. While Sabato’s tepid contributions are relegated to some measly, dated platform loafers and platform boots. Besides the celebs that are paid to wear Sabato’s Gucci, the casual fashion fan is still all over Alessandro’s Gucci at the shops.

 

[Monsieur Cristobal]

The most memorable moment so far was Daria in the swimming-pool with the jewels.
Dummy me, I thought they were preparing a very strong high jewellry collection (Kering owns Boucheron, which is wonderful, they could have had a little bit of help from that side).

It is weird what you say about Alessandro items still being in stores...
When Demna took over Balenciaga, before his first fashion show, there was a precollection done by the studio, with Stella Tennant in the lookbook, pretty cool.
Well, when that precollection hit the stores EVERY SINGLE PIECE by Alexander Wang was retired. As if he didn't exist.

Either they consider this seasons a transition time, or the chaos is really deep.

Sometimes it feels as if they parted ways with the person who turned a 3b house into a 9billion with, as only strategy, to do something different from Alessandro. Whatever, but different. Turn 180 degrees from the aesthetic that made them for a while the hottest brand on planet earth.

 

[sunnysideup]

The most memorable moment so far was Daria in the swimming-pool with the jewels.
Dummy me, I thought they were preparing a very strong high jewellry collection (Kering owns Boucheron, which is wonderful, they could have had a little bit of help from that side).

It is weird what you say about Alessandro items still being in stores...
When Demna took over Balenciaga, before his first fashion show, there was a precollection done by the studio, with Stella Tennant in the lookbook, pretty cool.
Well, when that precollection hit the stores EVERY SINGLE PIECE by Alexander Wang was retired. As if he didn't exist.

Either they consider this seasons a transition time, or the chaos is really deep.

Sometimes it feels as if they parted ways with the person who turned a 3b house into a 9billion with, as only strategy, to do something different from Alessandro. Whatever, but different. Turn 180 degrees from the aesthetic that made them for a while the hottest brand on planet earth.

Yep. It’s painfully obvious Kering leadertship has made mistake after mistake.

 

[PDFSD]

^^^This Gucci era is so marketing-by-numbers blandingly instaforgettable in every output, I genuinely have no memory of these campaigns everyone is speaking of: I do remember the shot of Daria self-comforting by a pool, but other than that, nothing.

Never cared for Alessandro’s wallflower dorks playing dressup, knocking off thrifstore and Dapper Dan finds either. But those campaigns were constantly solid as a rock from the beginning to the end of his era. Such an invaluable education in the power of branding. It’s stunningly ignorant and tragically hilarious why the Gucci empire can’t learn from what is right in front of them— or simply apply common sense that any design/marketing student would clearly see. How this multi-billion dollar corporation had no worldbuilidng groundwork prepared can only be down to not giving a fcuk. As reliably mediocre as Sabato is, he can’t be entirely blamed for the pathetic nothingness that's current-era Gucci presence.

What’s so blatantly revealing of this weakness for this Gucci era is the glaring lack of identity, personality and attitude. Alessandro’s logo-heavy leftovers are still carrying the brand at retail— now mixed with some knockoff-looking, watered-down revisions of Tom’s monogrammed archival scatterings. While Sabato’s tepid contributions are relegated to some measly, dated platform loafers and platform boots. Besides the celebs that are paid to wear Sabato’s Gucci, the casual fashion fan is still all over Alessandro’s Gucci at the shops.

As reliably mediocre as Sabato is, he can’t be entirely blamed for the pathetic nothingness that's current-era Gucci presence.

Well !!!! The pathetic nothingness is also his choice to design what he does and to say what he wants from his temas and choose who he works with like his direct team with that Zanola guy he choose to have as his artistic director, as a creative director you set the tone and you gate keep the vision and quality it starts and ends with you.

“You are the company you keep”

 

[FashionPower]

When Demna took over Balenciaga, before his first fashion show, there was a precollection done by the studio, with Stella Tennant in the lookbook, pretty cool.
Well, when that precollection hit the stores EVERY SINGLE PIECE by Alexander Wang was retired. As if he didn't exist.

BINGO!
Just look at Valentino: it's like the last Fall Winter collection designed by Piccioli did not even exist, no items in store and a very limited offerings on the website, in stores they just jumped from Spring Summer 2024 to Cruise 2025 skipping both PreFall and Fall Winter. On the website they removed all PPP bags line expect for the Loco, the Rockstud and the Vlogo (the bestsellers).
You do this only if you strongly believe in the vision of the creative director or the new design team...

 

[FashionPower]

Thanks Sabato, Zanola and the whole basic team for making us laugh with the release of the new holiday campaign!
- Kendall again (YAWN) paired with Jessica Chastain! Name a more random duo for a fashion campaign...reminded me of Selena Gomez modelling next to Julia Nobis for LV campaign
- Video with recycled Donna Summer "I feel love" song (just like last years' holiday campaign)
- 1 year and a half since Sabato joined and they are still pushing the Marmont belts and bags...so signs of anything designed by Sabato apart from the Rosso ANCORA color

 

[NoInvite]

BINGO!
Just look at Valentino: it's like the last Fall Winter collection designed by Piccioli did not even exist, no items in store and a very limited offerings on the website, in stores they just jumped from Spring Summer 2024 to Cruise 2025 skipping both PreFall and Fall Winter. On the website they removed all PPP bags line expect for the Loco, the Rockstud and the Vlogo (the bestsellers).
You do this only if you strongly believe in the vision of the creative director or the new design team...

The Dover Street Market world tour pop up is already miles a head from Ancora. Kudos to them.

 

[Phuel]

As reliably mediocre as Sabato is, he can’t be entirely blamed for the pathetic nothingness that's current-era Gucci presence.

Well !!!! The pathetic nothingness is also his choice to design what he does and to say what he wants from his temas and choose who he works with like his direct team with that Zanola guy he choose to have as his artistic director, as a creative director you set the tone and you gate keep the vision and quality it starts and ends with you.

“You are the company you keep”

Maybe I’m just mesmerized by Sabato’s backstage twirling/swaying/prancing that I’m just stanning a tad— but I’m still not so certain to blame him entirely for the plague of mediocrity that’s defined this brand. Without knowledge of how Gucci’s management operates specifically with Sabato, it’s all a guessing game with just how much control he really has. He was (and still is) essentially a nobody installed as a lead, and I suspect that may have been exactly what they wanted: A disposable corporate player. Corporate has more— maybe even total control, of the creative direction and product offering. Someone upthread had mentioned that current-era Gucci is so nondescript, so bland and so consumer, as to be accessible to everybody and everyone in order to maximize profit margins, while minimizing creative and production efforts and costs, is exactly why I suspect Sabato may not be in as much control as he’s blamed for. The brand just reeks of corporate meddling, down to a corporate schill like Sabato's salary being much less than had they appointed a star designer.

Frankly, Gucci’s been long dead to me since Tom left. And like @yslforever mentioned, it’s become such ghetto brand, it’s not worth batting a lash to see it at the current state it’s in. Worse than a brand for the casual fashion fan, it’s the brand for the casual fashion tourist.

 

[AVC]

The most memorable moment so far was Daria in the swimming-pool with the jewels.
Dummy me, I thought they were preparing a very strong high jewellry collection (Kering owns Boucheron, which is wonderful, they could have had a little bit of help from that side).

It is weird what you say about Alessandro items still being in stores...
When Demna took over Balenciaga, before his first fashion show, there was a precollection done by the studio, with Stella Tennant in the lookbook, pretty cool.
Well, when that precollection hit the stores EVERY SINGLE PIECE by Alexander Wang was retired. As if he didn't exist.

Either they consider this seasons a transition time, or the chaos is really deep.

Sometimes it feels as if they parted ways with the person who turned a 3b house into a 9billion with, as only strategy, to do something different from Alessandro. Whatever, but different. Turn 180 degrees from the aesthetic that made them for a while the hottest brand on planet earth.

This is so true. Went to a newly opened store recently and half the men’s products are still GG logo monograms and the web sportswear. Nothing from the Ancora men’s shows. What on earth are they doing?