History of Gucci

Guccio Gucci was born in 1881. In 1906, at the age of 25, he started the House of Gucci as a saddlers shop in Florence. Gucci's main talent was his workmanship in leather goods. In the 1920’s he was selling leather bags to horsemen and later progressed to luxury luggage as his buyers moved from equine transportation to motor carriages. In 1938 Guccio Gucci managed to open his first retail shop in Rome, Italy.

The company's history really began in 1921 with Guccio Gucci, a Florentine dishwasher turned leather merchant. Surviving both the Depression and World War II, the family business grew on its use of a distinctively flawed leather called "cuoio grasso," the ruffled surface of which, superimposed with the twin Gs of the family name, became a global sensation in the years after the war..

Unfortunately, a family disagreement began with Guccio's sons. Aldo, the sharp-minded businessman, expanded Gucci's business into new markets, identifying its merchandise with distinct markings like red-and-green webbing. He tirelessly pushed for expansion of the business, opening stores in Paris, New York, even Tokyo. By 1974, the Gucci empire numbered 14 stores and 46 franchised boutiques around the world. In just 20 years Aldo had built Gucci from small shop in the Savoy Plaza Hotel into a glittering empire spanning the United States, Europe, and Asia."

Nonetheless Aldo was having problems. He also wound up in a $7 million tax fraud scandal, which eventually enabled his nephew Maurizio, son of Rodolfo, to take over the company board of directors. After Rodolfo's death, Maurizio produced documents signing Rodolfo's shares over to Maurizio, which both saved him from massive inheritance taxes and made him a primary shareholder.

That brought Maurizio directly into conflict with Aldo. The legal battles that followed had sent Aldo to prison in 1986 at the age of 81. The family was dissolving; boardroom meetings were punctuated by flying ashtrays and screamed obscenities.

But there was a silver lining even in bitterness. Ironically, the Gucci brand benefitted from the negative publicity. The fighting helped to fuel the notoriety of the name and it wasn't necessarily a bad thing. The family would fight constantly, and people would pour into the stores and the sales would grow, and it was as though there was a connection between the two. Meantime, celebrities, led by Jackie Kennedy, embraced the brand.

Disagreements and the fighting between the relatives and generations had a dear cost. By 1989, about half of the business had been bought out by Investcorp, a group of investment bankers wanting a part of the business. Maurizio was still officially in charge, but Investcorp was in the actual control of Gucci. Maurizio put together a first class team: Gucci America CEO Domenico de Sole, creative director Dawn Mello, and head designer Tom Ford. It was an attempt to realize his forward-looking vision of Gucci as a modern corporate fashion enterprise.

But unfortunately, Maurizio did not succeed. Going through a difficult divorce process from Patrizia, Maurizio proceeded to run up huge amounts of debts. He was thought of as a visionary leader but not as a good manager by colleagues. Coinciding with plummeting sales in the 1990’s, forced Maurizio to step down.

Tom Ford moved to the top management of Gucci under Investcorp, with Mello returning to Bergdorf Goodman. Ford began turning out fresh, racy, groundbreaking new designs, like G-strings and stiletto pumps, which would never have come through under the Guccis. They became extremely popular, and the Gucci brand became more valuable than ever before.

Former CEO Domenico de Sole and creative director Tom Ford, who brought back Gucci's glitz after near bankruptcy in the 1990s, departed when majority shareholder Pinault-Printemps-Redoute sought to limit their autonomy. Current Gucci CEO Mark Lee in an interview with Women's Wear Daily said that the company “had the best year in the history of the company, so we are quite proud and happy about that”. Gucci, founded by a former dishwasher in 1921, now combines such well-known design labels as Yves St Laurent, Bottega Veneta, Sergio Rossi, Boucheron, Bedat & Co., Balenciaga, Stella McCartney and Alexander McQueen.