Sabato De Sarno - Designer

[chinsumo]

 

[FashionFanatico]

good to see that he's not following the path of Michele and decided to bring some classic glam (with an edge) back to Gucci.

 

[LadyJunon]

Full article:

‘I want people to fall in love with Gucci again’: Sabato De Sarno shares his plans for the Kering brand

The designer will step into the spotlight with his debut show as Gucci’s creative director on Friday, which will mark the beginning of Gucci’s next chapter.

BY NICOLE PHELPS
September 20, 2023.

“My first appointment with fashion was with Gucci.”

Sabato De Sarno is sitting on one of four Mario Bellini Le Bambole chairs in his Roman office with his dachshund Luce perched on his lap. It’s been “one month and 10 days” since he took over as creative director of Gucci, the $10 billion Kering brand. The little dog has made herself right at home in Gucci’s 17th-century Palazzo Mancini-Salviati headquarters, but De Sarno, a boyish 40 with a sensitive, thoughtful nature, is still feeling his way around — getting to know the teams, running product tests, and sitting down for introductory interviews like this one. He starts with a personal story about an early fashion purchase.

“I took the train to Rome, it was my first time in a luxury store,” he says on the July day we met. “I remember what surprised me was to see the people in the queue outside. I think I felt like my nephew does when I go to Disney with him now. It was emotional. When it was my moment to go in, I bought this jacket, a Tom Ford jacket. Velvet, deep red, with a black collar. I sold the necklace that my parents gave me to buy it. They don’t know that.”

Today he has a uniform of black T-shirts, black jeans and white Converse All-Star high-tops, but he still owns that Gucci jacket. “Now it’s very small for me,” he says. “I was a young guy, but I still have it because I love it.”

A graduate of Milan’s Istituto Secoli, with stints at Prada and Dolce & Gabbana before a decade-plus run at Valentino, De Sarno has been in fashion for 20 years, but prior to Gucci he worked behind the scenes and he was comfortable there. “This is a very new moment for me,” he says. “I’m a dreamer, but honestly I’ve never dreamed of something like this.”

By the time he bought the jacket, De Sarno knew he wanted to be a fashion designer. “I grew up in a small village in the south called Cicciano close to Naples,” he says. “And I was very interested in what people were wearing in the streets because it’s the first way that you communicate to other people who you are. This is when I started to think about creating clothes, because it’s about helping people to be themselves.”

Encouraging his team to be themselves was one of his first tasks at Gucci. “I called everyone into my office, and I said I know I’m your creative director, but I’m Sabato and I was in your position only 20 days ago and I know what you’re thinking, and why you aren’t saying anything. I know you’re scared because a lot of things are changing and you feel part of the old Gucci. But now you are here, and if you are here, you are my team, and I need your opinion.” During our July visit, De Sarno’s closest allies appear to be Remo Macco, a Gucci veteran who was named the studio design director last year, and artistic director Riccardo Zanola, with whom he worked previously at Valentino.

De Sarno earned the trust of Valentino’s Pierpaolo Piccioli over a span of 14 years, rising from head of knitwear for men and women in 2009 to become his right-hand man. The going-away party Piccioli threw for him at the end of April, with everyone wearing I ❤ SdS T-shirts, made the rounds on social media. High fashion isn’t accustomed to such public displays of emotion. Of his former boss, De Sarno says, “We’re not similar, but we have a lot of things that we share and we think in the same way. To me this is important: I can’t stay in a place where I don’t feel I can be myself, because I lost a lot of time when I was a teenager not being myself.” He says he didn’t come out as gay until he left home for school in Milan. It was the first place where he “felt free”.

When Kering announced his appointment in January, Marco Bizzarri, the company’s then-CEO, said De Sarno was hired to “write Gucci’s next chapter, reinforcing the house’s fashion authority while capitalising on its rich heritage”. The word the designer uses for his take on Gucci is Italianity. Gucci, he says, “It’s a very Italian brand with a huge heritage. Italian in craftsmanship, Italian in taste, and we lost that I think. I want to bring it back. Italianity is part of my story, for sure.”

Some designers are artists and some are engineers; De Sarno proudly belongs to the latter category. He chose the Istituto Secoli (then called the Istituto Carlo Secoli) because it offered the most technical training. “The other schools just suggested I draw inspirations for a moodboard. I wanted a school where I could learn skills.” At Prada, an internship led to a full-time job, and he worked in the pattern maker Delia Coccia’s office, turning 2D sketches into 3D garments. “She was a maker of coats and that’s why my passion today is coats. I collect them because she was the best in Prada.”

If eccentric is the adjective Gucci watchers reached for under the brand’s former creative director Alessandro Michele, essential seems better suited to De Sarno’s version. His Gucci debut is likely to open with a coat, minimal in cut and construction and made from a crisp wool, with the house’s trademark striped grosgrain ribbon trimming the vent in the back, an unobtrusive but unmissable marque. “I started from the wardrobe, because I felt the urgency to put together the pieces that I like and that I don’t find,” he says. “Yes, there are a lot of coats around the world, but this is my coat, my shape, my fabric, my detail.” The overall silhouette of the collection, in keeping with much of what we’ve seen this season in New York and London, is short and leggy. De Sarno’s minis come with built-in shorts that peek below the skirts’ hems. “It creates confidence,” he says. The classic Jackie bag will be making a comeback, but in a softer leather “to make it more everyday”, and the Bamboo bag, too.

In a departure from recent status quo, this season’s Gucci show will not take place at the Gucci Hub, the sprawling headquarters on the edge of Milan that opened in 2016. Instead, De Sarno has chosen the streets surrounding the Accademia di Brera, a historic fine arts university, where the designer imagines people lining the balconies to watch as the models walk by. Tunes by Mark Ronson, the Gucci show’s official music director whose most recent work includes the Barbie soundtrack, might even get them dancing.

Art plays a big role in De Sarno’s life. Gallery hopping is one way he and his husband Daniele, who is a lawyer and lives in Brussels, spend their weekends together, but he started collecting before they met, when he was “very young”. He leans towards work with words, work that “makes you think”, as he puts it. The piece behind his desk that reads “Everything is great / Everything is sh*t / Everything is boring / Everything is alright / Everything is f*cked / Everything is sexy / Everything is dull” is by an emerging Chicago artist, Eric Stefanski, and he namechecks Lucio Fontana, “not because of his colours or his sliced canvases, but because of the personal notes he wrote on their backs”. If he were to do like Fontana and put words in the lining of his show-opening coat, what would they be?

“I want it. I desire it,” he says. “I want people to fall in love with Gucci again. That’s why I use the word ‘ancora’ for my show.” De Sarno has the Italian word printed in a frame on the wall next to his desk. He also had it tattooed on his left arm after he got the Gucci job (on his right is an Ellsworth Kelly calla lily from when he was 18). “Ancora means a lot of things,” he explains. “It means again, but it’s also more personal; it’s not something you lost, it’s something that you still have, but you want more of it because it makes you happy.”

De Sarno made the internet happy when the first image from the jewellery campaign was released on 5 August, and Daria Werbowy was its star. Werbowy dominated the runways in the 2000s before walking away from modelling in 2013, but she came back for her old friend Sabato. The pair met 20 years ago, when De Sarno was earning his chops at Prada. “Daria, we started together in this business in 2003, and here you are with me at the beginning of this new adventure,” he wrote on the Instagram post accompanying the ad, in which she wears a black bikini bottom with interlocking double Gs at the hip and gold hoop earrings from the company’s high jewellery collection. On his Stories, he posted a two-decades-old snapshot of the two of them together, De Sarno’s curls and Werbowy’s bleached eyebrows serving as markers of the time that has passed.

For his runway show this Friday, De Sarno and his casting director Piergiorgio Del Moro are focused on new faces. “I would love to have unknown people,” the designer says. “I want to show an aesthetic, and if I use famous people you only see them. I’m not sure if they’d help me tell the story I want to tell.” De Sarno understands that Gucci is “a microphone to say things”, and one thing he’s shouting about is young talent. Concurrent with his runway debut, Gucci is sponsoring a gallery show of four young Milan-based artists not far from the Accademia di Brera venue of the show; the exhibition is open to the public and is accompanied by a publication, Gucci Prospettive N.1, Milano Ancora, that De Sarno describes as a “love letter” to Milan.

In late July, Kering announced a corporate shakeup. Second-quarter sales at megabrand Gucci had risen 1 per cent to €2.5 billion, below consensus expectations of 4 per cent. However, chairman and CEO François-Henri Pinault, acknowledging the executive changes that had been put in place, said, “the potential of Gucci, in my opinion, is above €15 billion”.

Bizzarri was to exit in September, the day after De Sarno’s show, and Jean-François Palus, formerly the Kering Group managing director, would succeed him. The reorganisation could have proved destabilising for a first-time creative director, but when De Sarno hops on the phone a week before his show, he tells a different story. “It was a big change, for sure, but not for me because I’m quite new. I feel like this is a bigger evolution now; all the key people, we are all new.” There’s a lot riding on De Sarno’s shoulders, but he’s ready. “I’m so excited,” he says. “I know the process because it’s part of my work, but the emotion behind this, it’s indescribable.”

The accompanying photos:

Source: Vogue Business

 

[LadyJunon]

I find it very interesting that Sabato's approach is based in real people's wardrobes, especially considering that he spent so long at Valentino, specifically PPP's Valentino. His dedication to the technical side of fashion design is refreshing too.

 

[kasper!]

Based on the preview I think the tone of his show would be 90's style.....Michele is based on 40's but with crazy mix of 20's 70's 80's. Frida is pretty much on 60's & 70's. It is insane how they shift so often.....But business is cruel always.

As a half Florentino and huge Tom Ford fan I always adore this brand and wish Sabato the best for his debut show! Forza Sabato!!

 

[Frederic01]

I hope whatever he does has a strong point of view because from what we see in that preview, I’m not hopeful. The clothes are reminding me of Raf Simons’ Dior debut and those bags look very ordinary…

 

[Frederic01]

Sabato De Sarno on Gucci’s New Imagery, Freedom and Show Debut
The designer opened up to WWD in his first interview since being appointed creative director of the brand in January and ahead of unveiling his debut collection on Friday.

SEPTEMBER 20, 2023, 12:01AM


Sabato De Sarno CLOTILDE PETROSINO/WWD

ROME — Tradition and modernity fuse under the frescoed vaults of the 17th century Palazzo Mancini in Rome, which is symbolic of Gucci’s current reinvention under creative director Sabato De Sarno. Contemporary art stands out in his spacious office there, one particular piece by the Chicago-born Eric Stefanski hangs pride of place behind ...

WWD

 

[Lola701]

I’m slightly afraid tbh…
I always hate when we have a lot of interviews or paper before the debut of a designer because it’s always a bit underwhelming. It seems like for the past month, fashion news has been about Gucci. The attention is understandable but the more I hear about it, the more I’m raising my eyebrows…lol.

Mini silhouettes with kitten heels on very young models can look very junior…A bit like Valentino used to look sometimes…

But we will get our answers soon.

 

[tatouejeremie]

the selection of books behind him tell me everything

 

[LadyJunon]

WWD

Full article:

Sabato De Sarno on Gucci’s New Imagery, Freedom and Show Debut

The designer opened up to WWD in his first interview since being appointed creative director of the brand in January and ahead of unveiling his debut collection on Friday.

By LUISA ZARGANI
SEPTEMBER 20, 2023, 12:01AM

ROME — Tradition and modernity fuse under the frescoed vaults of the 17th century Palazzo Mancini in Rome, which is symbolic of Gucci’s current reinvention under creative director Sabato De Sarno.

Contemporary art stands out in his spacious office there, one particular piece by the Chicago-born Eric Stefanski hangs pride of place behind his sleek black desk, fashion books and sheets of paper neatly piled up. Green words dance on the peach orange canvas: “Everything Is Great, Everything Is S–t, Everything Is Exciting, Everything Is Boring…” and so on, with other adjectives that range from all right to dull.

“I like words a lot, they have weight and a precise meaning, they convey emotions, so I like artists who use words, Robert Barry or [Alighiero] Boetti,” De Sarno said.

It’s not surprising then that he would select one specific word for his first womenswear collection for Gucci, to be shown in Milan on Friday: “Ancora,” or again in English.

“Ancora is a word that you use when your desire is not over yet, whether it’s a kiss or an embrace, or making love; it’s as if you own something and you want more of it.” He also said he wanted to “fall in love with fashion all over again — ancora.”

On his mood board, Ancora is spelled out in white on a red sheet of paper, surrounded by other red references — a Lucio Fontana slashed canvas, a red Jackie bag, shining red lips and Gucci’s monogram in red, among others.

To show exactly what kind of red he has in mind, since this is a shade that veers toward a deep rose red, almost burgundy, De Sarno pulled out the new packaging, which is sure to catch any loyal Gucci customer off-guard. Gone is his predecessor Alessandro Michele’s ornate green decorative pattern embossed onto paper bags — the new shopper is a liquid, almost shiny yet deep red with the brand’s name spelled out in white.

To De Sarno, however, this is not surprising. “Red is actually everywhere at Gucci. The very first Jackie bag was black with a red lining. I went to the Savoy Hotel, where Guccio Gucci worked [as a young man before founding his company] and the elevator, inside, is red,” he said.

It is obvious De Sarno has been doing some serious homework, as he recounts his excitement at discovering a treasure trove of unexpected pieces at Gucci’s Archive in Florence.

“Sure, there are the icons — the Jackie, the Bamboo bags — but I never imagined there would be this entire world of Gucci. On the lower floor, there is a lifestyle collection. I thought I would find a few gadgets but actually it’s a full-fledged home collection,” he marveled. “There are so many prints, the first foulards just as beautiful as the Flora and others by [Vittorio] Accornero, there is a world of animal prints that are part of the history, jewels and embroideries, which you would not immediately associate with Gucci.”

Case in point: a silver embroidered clutch in wool led the designer to include several embroideries in his spring collection. “Gucci has a beautiful history, and I feel it’s not been told enough, there are not that many books on Gucci.”

While those who know him swear by his skill at organization and describe him as creative but also concrete, a good planner and tenacious, De Sarno said he is actually very instinctive and that being organized helps him structure his life so that he does not have to miss out on anything. He lives between Rome, Milan and Brussels, where his husband works, and he always makes time for family and friends.

Wearing a practical and casual T-shirt over comfortable pants and Converse sneakers, all in black, De Sarno posed gamely for the WWD shoot, his manner friendly and easy. Hailing from Cicciano, a small town near Naples, the spontaneity and engaging ways Neapolitans are associated with are still there.

He is conscious of the role he plays at Gucci, underscoring that it’s a “great opportunity and a dream,” and is very serious about his job, aware of the task at hand as Kering chairman and chief executive officer François-Henri Pinault aims to refresh the brand and boost its performance. However, “I still want to be Sabato, have some fun, and there needs to be some degree of levity,” he claimed, saying he relished the freedom he has been given so far. “People imagine I have this long list of rules, limits or obligations, but that’s not true at all. I have been given free rein.”

Showing no apprehension ahead of his first show, he admitted, however, that he gets a bit more nervous when people ask him how he feels about his debut at Gucci. Otherwise, he said simply, “I am just doing my job, I like it, it’s what I want to do and every day I am surprised and amazed I am here.”

Named to his current post in January, De Sarno joined Gucci from Valentino, where he spent 14 years and rose through the ranks to become fashion director of men’s and women’s ready-to-wear in 2020.

He debuted in the fashion industry as assistant patternmaker at Prada in 2003 and left in 2006 when he joined knitwear manufacturer Annapurna until, two years later, he was named head designer of the women’s knitwear and jersey collection at Dolce & Gabbana.

“I never thought I would become the creative director of Gucci and I was very happy at Valentino, but I am very proud of this role. Gucci to me equals luxury and the first fashion piece I ever owned was a Gucci jacket by Tom Ford. I still remember I traveled to Rome to buy it with my friend, there was no Gucci store in Naples at the time, and luxury was really not part of our world. Television was the only way to see fashion for me back then,” he recalled.

Fashion allowed him to express himself. “I would dress up for a walk in the town and clothes would help me and with my friends we would check out how people would dress. Choosing what to wear defines yourself.”

Over the years, he has become a collector of fashion archival pieces, in addition to contemporary art works. Asked if he had a mentor, he said he “was crazy” for Gianni Versace when he was young, and that when the designer was killed in 1997, “it was a really very dark day” for him. Of Versace, he admired how he lived freely, he related to his being from the south of Italy, too; his moving to Milan, and his close-knit family links.

His own years living in Milan led him to the choice of location for his first Gucci show. His models will weave out of the Brera Art Academy and into the streets. “I used to have many friends studying in Brera and I liked to join them and look around the Accademia,” he reminisced, citing the Bar Jamaica in the ‘60s and ‘70s as “a place of interesting conversations, where artists and poets would meet. Milan is the city of opportunities, and I have always felt free there. It’s the city of fashion, but also of design, art and culture.”

To wit, he staged an event on Tuesday at Bar Jamaica to present the first volume of his “Gucci Prospettive” series, which will accompany each of his collections for the brand. Stefano Collicelli Cagol, director of the Luigi Pecci Center for Contemporary Art in Prato, interpreted the vision for the first chapter, named “Milano Ancora.”

“I like to give the same amount of space to Lucio Fontana as to an emerging artist, I like that balance,” said De Sarno, who aims to pay tribute to Milan with its art works, literature excerpts, music, cinema and fashion, narrating fragments of the city’s cultural and artistic history from the post-war period to the present day.

He revealed he is not much into set designs and the streets in Brera will “allow people to have the opportunity to see the clothes.” Inclusivity is a given in his opinion, while he prefers to focus on diversity — but especially through concrete facts and actions rather than just talking about it.

About the spring collection, he said he had a ‘60s and ‘90s silhouette in mind, “very short” looks, all daywear. “I didn’t want to show eveningwear. Gucci to me is more daywear, and outerwear is my passion — coats, peacoats….My ambition is to build an aesthetic message with an edited collection that is mindful of Gucci’s heritage and close to my own aesthetics.”

Again, he cited Fontana, who did not date his paintings but would write a phrase behind the canvas that would remind him of the period. “No date makes something immortal,” he opined. The process behind Fontana’s artworks was very complex, he explained, and people don’t really realize this. “I like things that appear simple but where the process is actually hyper-creative.”

De Sarno knows accessories are also key to Gucci’s business and hinted at revisiting the Jackie bag, referencing the icon’s forerunner from the late ’50s with the red lining and the original snap hook closure, not the piston.

While the week before the show Gucci’s Instagram was wiped clean, signaling a new chapter for the brand, De Sarno has enjoyed teasing a few images on his own handle, such as a post in mid-August reproducing a map of Milan, zooming in on Brera and, earlier that month, of Daria Werbowy posing for a Gucci jewelry campaign, photographed by David Sims at Chateau Marmont wearing only a bikini bottom on the side of the pool.

It gave a clue to his vision for Gucci but asked about the choice, De Sarno sounded more sentimental than strategic. “Daria was the first model I saw up close when I was working at Prada, it was a very nice moment, early on in our careers, with David, who photographed her at her debut and now again in this new phase for me.”

Source: WWD

 

[LadyJunon]

Cut from article above:

On his mood board, Ancora is spelled out in white on a red sheet of paper, surrounded by other red references — a Lucio Fontana slashed canvas, a red Jackie bag, shining red lips and Gucci’s monogram in red, among others.

To show exactly what kind of red he has in mind, since this is a shade that veers toward a deep rose red, almost burgundy, De Sarno pulled out the new packaging, which is sure to catch any loyal Gucci customer off-guard. Gone is his predecessor Alessandro Michele’s ornate green decorative pattern embossed onto paper bags — the new shopper is a liquid, almost shiny yet deep red with the brand’s name spelled out in white.

To De Sarno, however, this is not surprising. “Red is actually everywhere at Gucci. The very first Jackie bag was black with a red lining. I went to the Savoy Hotel, where Guccio Gucci worked [as a young man before founding his company] and the elevator, inside, is red,” he said.

It seems like the red is going to become the new "Bottega Green".

He revealed he is not much into set designs and the streets in Brera will “allow people to have the opportunity to see the clothes.” Inclusivity is a given in his opinion, while he prefers to focus on diversity — but especially through concrete facts and actions rather than just talking about it.

About the spring collection, he said he had a ‘60s and ‘90s silhouette in mind, “very short” looks, all daywear. “I didn’t want to show eveningwear. Gucci to me is more daywear, and outerwear is my passion — coats, peacoats….My ambition is to build an aesthetic message with an edited collection that is mindful of Gucci’s heritage and close to my own aesthetics.”

Also, the show will be held outside in the streets of Brera with the collection having a heavy focus on daywear.

 

[Frederic01]

To show exactly what kind of red he has in mind, since this is a shade that veers toward a deep rose red, almost burgundy, De Sarno pulled out the new packaging, which is sure to catch any loyal Gucci customer off-guard. Gone is his predecessor Alessandro Michele’s ornate green decorative pattern embossed onto paper bags — the new shopper is a liquid, almost shiny yet deep red with the brand’s name spelled out in white.

So the burgundy colour will be the "Gucci colour" after all...

 

[style_expert]

I’m slightly afraid tbh…
I always hate when we have a lot of interviews or paper before the debut of a designer because it’s always a bit underwhelming. It seems like for the past month, fashion news has been about Gucci. The attention is understandable but the more I hear about it, the more I’m raising my eyebrows…lol.

I agree. The more I hear about it, the less excited I become...
From the first interviews, he doesn't come across as a very inspired, original designer.
It sounds like his brief from Kering is very clear and his role is mainly to execute the change in direction, not so much to have a great vision.

The whole color-brand identity thing has worn me out completely too.

So the casting will be done by Piergiorgio and will mainly consist of new faces.
I believe Alastair McKimm is styling (based on his IG) and that doesn't give me a lot of hope either..

 

[FashionFanatico]

i have to chime in here: the preview looks....not good. not very convincing and desireable.

also the whole pseudo intellectual word salad from him is a bit of a let-down - to put it nicely. Ancora basta!

honestly my hopes aren't that high anymore. Just wish he will prove us all wrong on Friday.

 

[SophiaVB]

The color thing is now extremely tired - and worse it's very easy to replicate at lower price points from the fast-fashion brands. Much easier and less cumbersome than purchasing counterfeit logo pieces.

 

[Kennnnn]

White lettering on a burgundy background sounds like what Ferragamo used to be

 

[gallianostan]

the selection of books behind him tell me everything

the catwalk books... like.... girl

 

[LadyJunon]

News concerning tomorrow's show:

 

[callmejaeden]

Disappointing, maybe next season it can be held in Brera

 

[matheus_s]

Full article:

The accompanying photos:

Source: Vogue Business

who is the guy with Sabato?