Harajuku Gallery: You are born this way, you are born Gucci

When Guccio Gucci, son of a Florentine craftsman, opened a modest leather-goods shop in his native city in 1921, he laid the foundation for what would become one of the world's most powerful and recognizable luxury brands. Gucci was wise to the ways of the European aristocracy, having once worked at the Savoy Hotel in London, and his store's wares included traveling articles, luggage, and saddlery with a certain elegant. By the 1930's his accessories and bags, distinguished by the horse bit and stirrup motif, had become trendy among the jet set. Over the next 30 years Gucci and his sons—Rodolfo, Aldo, Ugo, and Vasco—cemented the brand's international prestige with the introduction of its iconic bamboo-handled bag (still in production today), green-red-green webbing, and logo of interlocking G's. Further enhancing the company's image were Gucci-wearing style setters like Jackie O and Grace Kelly.

In the 1970's and 1980's the family business expanded into the Far East. As it diversified and added more accessible items to its line, however, its elite reputation began to tarnish. After Rodolfo's death in 1983, his son Maurizio took the reins of the company amid a storm of Gucci-versus-Gucci legal battles and a tax-evasion conviction for Aldo Gucci in 1986. The house was near bankruptcy when Maurizio sold half of the company's shares to a Bahrain-based investment group in the late eighties (the remaining shares were sold in 1993).

When Tom Ford joined the company, Dawn Mello, then Gucci's creative director, appointed him to design womenswear in 1990. By 1995, new CEO Domenico De Sole was planning a total relaunch. Ford's until-then behind-the-scenes role was expanded and he was named the new creative director. Ford masterminded a new Gucci image of exclusive and sexy provocation with a concept of woman as glamazon. Over the next few years, he designed collections that would come to define the late nineties, with such signatures as the boot-cut velvet suit paired with a cleavage-baring unbuttoned shirt (incidentally his own trademark look), the white jersey cutout dress, and the flesh-colored goddess gown sprinkled with tiny crystals.

In 1999 the French powerhouse LVMH tried to acquire Gucci, but its rival PPR bested it, snapping up Gucci and creating the Gucci Group, which today is home to Yves Saint Laurent, Bottega Veneta, Alexander McQueen, and Balenciaga, among others. In 2004 Ford and De Sole left Gucci after sparring with PPR executives. Frida Giannini, a former accessories designer under Ford, is the current creative director.

Published in October 2006, Gucci by Gucci opens the house’s archives for the first time, bringing together—in the form of bags, clothes, accessories, and a cache of documentary photographs—the history of the Florentine family-owned saddler that has imprinted its name on the fashion consciousness. Both a history of the company and a glorious visual exploration of its far-reaching influence.
There is also a new movie being shot by the director Ridley Scott (Gladiator) that is set to bring the story of the turbulent Gucci family to the big screen, including when Paolo Gucci almost sent his father Aldo to prison for tax fraud. Maurizo Gucci's's murder in 1995 and the subsequent arrest of his widow Patrizia, who was convicted three years later of ordering his assassination. Well... Italian families.

Look at the new Gucci RTW Spring 10 campaign, photographed by Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott. Models Natasha Poly, Ryan Kennedy. You may read more about the photographers in my previous post http://ellauniverse.blogspot.com/2009/10/mert-alas-and-marcus-piggott-for.html and Fridas's Gucci Spring 2010 in my post http://ellauniverse.blogspot.com/2009/10/frida-owns-gucci.html