In the Name of Gucci Read online

  My grandparents didn’t cross the English Channel to witness the marriage, as that would have meant closing the store and unnecessary expense. My father described himself in the church register as a leather goods merchant and enlisted the local tobacconist as his best man.

  As was the Italian custom then—and to a certain extent again now—the bride came home to live with her groom and his parents in their modest two-story house in Florence. Although Olwen was well traveled, she soon felt like a fish out of water in a country where she barely spoke the language, didn’t get on particularly well with her mother-in-law, and wasn’t that keen on the food.

  With a demanding new baby, Giorgio, who was born on February 2, 1928, she had no time to socialize, so my father increasingly went out on his own, for work and for pleasure. With two more sons in quick succession, Paolo, born in March 1931, and Roberto in November 1932, his wife devoted herself to raising her boys. Needing more space, the couple moved to their own home outside the city, where Olwen became even more isolated from her dynamic husband with the Latin spirit whose appetite for life—and women—never waned.

  Italy between the wars was largely in thrall to its prime minister Benito Mussolini, head of the Fascist Party. With the clever use of propaganda and promises of economic growth the man known as Il Duce created a cult following and ruled as a one-party dictator with the help of his feared Blackshirts.

  My father was never the slightest bit interested in politics and had little time for the Fascists. He and my grandfather were too busy scheming. Even though their country was in the grip of a depression, they were determined to push ahead with their plans to expand the company using their imported hides. My uncles Vasco and Rodolfo both showed early promise but they never shared quite the same zeal for the future of the business as my father did. In 1935, when Papà had just turned thirty, politics unexpectedly interfered with his plans. Mussolini ordered the invasion of Abyssinia (also known as Ethiopia) over an ongoing border dispute with the Italian colony of Somalia. The seven-month conflict sparked worldwide outrage and the League of Nations, of which both countries were members, imposed a series of sanctions that resulted in a trade blockade on Italy.

  In danger of losing access to their vital supplies of German leather, my father and grandfather had to act quickly, little knowing that their decisions would set the tone for Gucci’s future. Papà was able to source some calfskin hides from a tannery in the historic Santa Croce quarter of Florence, on the southeastern fringes of the city. Realizing that this high-grade and much more expensive material, known as cuoio grasso, would have to be used more frugally, he then found Italian suppliers of jute, rope, linen, and Naples hemp, materials he planned to use in order to supplement the leather.

  For what was to become their bestselling suitcase, he chose a tan-colored canvas printed with a distinctive geometric pattern in dark brown that became known as the “rombi design.” This signature cloth with leather trim is still used on Gucci products and was later personalized with a series of interlocking double G’s for the name Guccio Gucci, yet another of my father’s clever innovations.

  The Italo-Abyssinian War ended the same month as his thirty-first birthday but its effects on the design and feel of Gucci products would be lifelong. The company had not only managed to survive the trade embargo but business was booming. Papà felt invincible despite the distant rumblings of another conflict. My uncle Vasco had settled into his role in charge of the factory and Uncle Rodolfo had followed his dream to become a film actor under the stage name Maurizio D’Ancora.

  My father, still the number one son, was itching to expand to Rome and then farther afield but it took him two years and numerous heated battles with my grandfather before he could persuade him that such a risk made financial sense. Guccio had become more cautious in middle age, especially whenever he recalled how his family had once nearly lost everything. The business in Florence was doing better than he expected and that was all he’d hoped for. “Why would we risk all that with an unknown venture in a city we have no connection with? Especially when there are rumors of another war.” But beneath my grandfather’s gruff exterior was still the adventurous young boy who’d run away to England to seek his fortune, and secretly, he admired my father’s courage and indomitable will—what Italians would call his forza.

  Under relentless pressure, he eventually allowed my father to purchase a new store in Rome at number 21 Via Condotti, a fashionable central location not far from the Spanish Steps. The shop was largely modeled on the first, complete with the same ivory handles carved like olives. No expense was spared on display cases, carpeting, and lighting. The two-story corner premises even had a spacious apartment upstairs for Olwen and their three sons. Rome became their new home.

  On September 1, 1938, Papà presided over the opening of the new bottega, or store, on Via Condotti. I can only imagine the sense of excitement he must have felt in branching out from Florence for the first time as his ambitious spirit finally found its outlet. He assured his father of guaranteed sales from the growing numbers of American and other tourists flooding into the city, all eager to return home with quality leather goods.

  What he hadn’t bargained for was the outbreak of the Second World War exactly one year to the day after the shop’s official opening. When Mussolini then joined forces with Germany in 1940, the future looked bleak—not only for the business but also for just about every commercial venture across Europe. If it weren’t for the fortitude of their friendly bank and a contract to divert their artisans into making boots for the Italian infantry, G. Gucci & Co. would almost certainly have gone under.

  My father managed to avoid conscription thanks to Il Duce’s insistence that businesses in the Italian capital continue to operate as normal in order to keep up morale. His brothers in Florence weren’t so lucky and both saw frontline service. Rome didn’t escape the war completely, however, and was bombed by the Allies in 1943 and 1944, causing thousands of civilian casualties. The Vatican maintained a strictly neutral policy and Pope Pius XII took to the streets to hand out alms to those worst affected. Eventually, he successfully pleaded with President Roosevelt to declare Rome an “open city”—one that had abandoned all defensive actions—which ultimately protected its people and its greatest treasures.

  While my father struggled to keep the business going, his wife focused on their sons, whom she’d raised to be bilingual and planned to take home to visit her family in England as soon as she could after the war. The boys all attended the Mater Dei school, run by Irish nuns, and were close companions with the usual sibling rivalries. Giorgio, the eldest boy, developed a stammer and was a somewhat nervy child. Paolo, a typical middle son, was noisy and gregarious, while Roberto was adored as the baby. In the absence of the man they called “Daddy,” with whom Olwen was locked into a loveless marriage, it was she who also fed their sons’ emotional life.

  It seems strange these days to think that less than a hundred years ago, divorce was not only unheard of in Italy but considered a direct violation of the canon law of the Catholic Church, which it still is today. It wouldn’t be sanctioned legally until the 1970s. Even Protestant Britain frowned upon it. Unless Olwen went back to Shropshire to live on rationing without her children, she had little choice but to stay in Italy and bring up her boys as best she could. She resigned herself to the fact that my father would largely be absent from her life as he continued on his all-consuming quest for professional, personal, and commercial gain.

  When the war ended and the partisans killed Mussolini, the despondent Nazis in Rome were replaced by triumphant American soldiers smoking cigarettes and handing out chewing gum. The GIs’ seemingly limitless supply of dollar bills was welcomed nowhere more warmly than at Gucci. As Papà tallied up each day’s takings, he must have been mightily relieved that what some had regarded as his reckless adventure was paying off at last.

  Brimming with new ideas and hoping to build up an international reputation, he quickly increase
d production of easily transportable accessories such as gloves, belts, lapel badges, and key fobs. He also began grooming his children to take their places in the Gucci dynasty he hoped to create, something his father actively encouraged.

  Such was his passion for his trade that my grandfather reputedly liked to wave a piece of leather under his grandchildren’s noses soon after they were born, telling them, “This is the smell of leather, the smell of your future!” I’m not sure how I would have reacted as a baby if my father had done this to me, but as an adult I can appreciate the natural, almost primitive quality of rich hides, evoking memories of the finest moments in life.

  Like his father before him, Papà also fostered stiff competition between his fresh-faced teenage sons, encouraging them to take a keen interest in the business he was determined they’d one day inherit. He enlisted them in the stockroom and with deliveries—just as he had been employed at their age. My father couldn’t possibly have known as he cheerfully sent them out on their bicycles in those heady early days that, between them, they would bring about his ruin.

  A myth is defined as “a traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people.” It can also mean “a widely held but false belief or idea.” As someone who grew up shrouded in secrecy, I was well accustomed to the truth being disguised, so when I discovered that there was a little reinvention surrounding the Gucci name long before I was born, it came as no surprise.

  Since his earliest days at the Savoy Hotel, Grandfather Guccio appreciated the importance of tradition when it came to creating a status symbol. Ancestral titles, family crests, and embossed initials were the marque of the gentry, so if the Gucci label was to become synonymous with luxury and attract the rich and upwardly mobile, then my father knew he had to downplay his family’s humble origins and invent a more illustrious heritage. It certainly wasn’t in their interests to reveal my grandfather’s lowly start as a page.

  As Papà once declared, “A status symbol is not born. It becomes one when accepted by a certain elite and everyone then becomes eager to buy it.” So in the years immediately after the war, he and his father set about devising an ingenious plan to create a better backstory for the Gucci name. Having grown up in the era before motorcars and with so many of their clients horse-riding aristocrats, they based their remodeled history on a “presumed” line of descent from Florentine saddlers to medieval nobility.

  This gelled with the durable equestrian-themed line of products they began to produce that would come to include red-and-green-striped webbing inspired by girth straps, fabrics the colors of racing silks, metal hardware and handles modeled on stirrups and bits, and the kind of double stitching usually associated with the finest leather saddles.

  The clever twist was the upgrade of the tiny Gucci insignia hand-stitched into every bag that left the factory. It now incorporated a modified crest, which featured a shield beneath the family name adorned with a rose and a wheel. A noble knight in armor replaced the lowly servant carrying luggage.

  And so this particular myth was born.

  When I was a little girl my father presented me with a tiny signet ring bearing this Gucci crest. Crafted in eighteen-karat gold, it fit perfectly on my pinkie. Too young to appreciate its significance, I wore it with pride and still treasure it today.

  My father had other ideas to keep trade brisk, too. During the difficult postwar years when Italy suffered a depression and leather was still a controlled commodity, he continued to experiment with other materials in order to produce financially viable goods. They say that from necessity comes invention, and in 1947, the Bamboo Bag came into being. Nobody is certain who within Gucci first came up with the idea of a distinctively shaped pigskin bag inspired by the contours of a saddle with a handle made of burnished bamboo cane, but I’ve always thought it was a stroke of pure genius.

  The bag was an immediate success and even featured in a Roberto Rossellini movie adorning the arm of Ingrid Bergman. After so many years of financial ruin and Fascist rule, Gucci’s brave little Bamboo Bag represented something new and exciting. Emblematic of the country’s revival, it was a signature motif that would be adopted in many later incarnations and remains an iconic status symbol with vintage models still highly sought after. I had one of my own in black, a gift from my mother, which was stolen years later along with a hoard of Gucci bags that were among my most prized possessions.

  By this time, my father and both my uncles had become involved in the business full-time. Having spent much of the war entertaining the troops, Rodolfo’s stage career collapsed. Unemployed, he somewhat reluctantly took up his position on the floor of the Via del Parione store while devoting his spare time to creating a lengthy autobiographical film featuring his greatest movie moments. He, too, was creating his own myth.

  Easygoing Vasco, who’d overseen the wartime military boot production, was put in charge of the Florentine factories, including a new one built on the success of the Bamboo Bag. To reward them for their efforts, my grandfather awarded directorships to each of his three sons, giving them an equal number of shares, although everyone accepted that he and Papà were in the driver’s seat. The move inspired confidence and family pride nevertheless. Skilled leather workers flocked to the firm, which was gaining a growing reputation as both a steady employer and one that encouraged innovation with commensurate rewards.

  In a clever move that I suspect my grandfather copied from Franzi, each artisan was given his own identifying number—stamped inside everything he made—to encourage responsibility, creativity, and provenance. Anything found to be faulty could be traced directly back to the individual, which helped ensure the highest possible standards.

  All hands were needed to fill the rising number of orders as the Rome store continued to bring in new trade. Eager to cash in on Gucci’s growing international cachet, my father coined the motto “Quality is remembered long after price is forgotten” and had it gold-embossed on leather plaques placed strategically around the stores. Indeed, the products were so well made back then that my friends’ mothers still comment on how bags bought then are timeless and look like new after decades. My grandfather, obsessed with craftsmanship and durability, would have been proud.

  In his restless manner, which my mother and I were all too familiar with, Papà traveled farther and farther afield seeking new materials and visiting trade shows across Europe. In London he ordered a large quantity of ginger and brindle pigskins from specialist tanners in Walsall, Staffordshire. These butter-soft hides became so crucial to the Gucci business that he would visit the factory personally to choose them. The more he traveled, the more he appreciated that the company needed to expand to take advantage of the worldwide boom. He set his sights first on Milan, which was recovering well after being carpet-bombed by the Allies.

  My grandfather remained nervous about any further expansion. He and my grandmother Aida still lived in the same house and had acquired few of the trappings of wealth. One of his mottos was “Stay small to remain great,” and he was determined not to let my father get too carried away. Sensible Vasco, whose job it was to hire staff and supervise production, was also wary of Papà’s naked ambition. Uncle Rodolfo, the baby of the family, known as “Foffo,” had a slightly different take. Having been a matinée idol and seen something of the world, he’d mixed with sophisticated people and knew there was an untapped market for quality goods. Even though he’d been forced to give up his Hollywood fantasy, he could see that my father had dreams too and soon became his chief ally.

  With his younger brother’s support, Papà was able to get his own way in 1951 and acquire new premises at number 7 Via Monte Napoleone, known colloquially as “Montenapo”—Milan’s most fashionable street. With what was becoming uncanny prescience, my father located the store in just the right place at the right time. He put Rodolfo safely at the helm of the smart bottega, knowing that he’d draw on his connections in the movie industry. Before long, the cream of the Italian film studios was
clamoring at the door of Gucci Milan, with the likes of Marcello Mastroianni from Fellini’s La Dolce Vita and Gina Lollobrigida snapping up the latest designs.

  Papà, however, had even bigger plans. Long before my grandfather had been carrying bags at the Savoy, a vast tide of some three million Italians had headed to American shores in what was known as the “New Immigration” to become a vital part of the US economy. When GIs started returning to the States as unofficial ambassadors for stylish leather goods, they created a fresh hunger for all things Italian. My father was eager to transform the American image of Italy as a nation of poor pizza-eating immigrants into something much more prestigious, making it synonymous with quality and design. He had a sixth sense that he should take Gucci to New York, the commercial heartland of his favorite clients. These were pioneering days, and just like the miners of the gold rush in the previous century, he knew that there were fortunes to be made for those who acted boldly. Booking himself a passage on a transatlantic liner in 1952, Papà was determined to be among the first.

  The city dubbed “the Big Apple” was all that he hoped for and more. From the moment he disembarked at Luxury Liner Row in the Port of New York, he was infatuated. With the name of a lawyer in his breast pocket, he stood in awe, taking in the spectacle before him. Everything from the skyscrapers to the scale of the streets and the tail-finned cars powering in all directions oozed enthusiasm and commerce. He was spellbound. It was the start of a love affair with America that would last for many years.

  Accompanied by the attorney he hooked up with, Papà viewed a number of potential premises in midtown Manhattan. As with the shops he picked in Italy—and as I would see him do many times over the years—he’d stand across the street from each building and half-close his eyes as he imagined the distinctive Gucci lettering above the door. If the layout didn’t look right or frontage didn’t blend seamlessly with its surroundings, he’d shake his head and move on to the next.