Nowadays Gucci is one of the most known luxury brands. It is the symbol of the Italian artisans maestry and represents the luxury wearing as a manual craft in the globe. It has more than 270 stores all around the world and its brand value is about 12.5 billion dollars.

The worldwide famous brand Gucci takes is name from its founder: Guccio Gucci. Guccio Gucci was born in 1881 in Florence, Italy. As a teenager he worked in Savoy Hotel in London. And just working there he got interested in luxury suitcases that guests from all over the world had with them. After some years he came back to his hometown, Florence, where he worked at Franzi’s luggage workshop.

In 1921 Guccio opened his first leather goods store where, at the beginnings, he mainly sold saddles and other items for horse riders. That’s where the iconic symbol green-red-green stripes of Gucci comes from: it’s a part of the back of horses’ saddles. Later his shop started to make other leather crafts like shoes and gloves.

Thanks to the inspiration took from the English experience and the quality of the Italian leather, Gucci become famous all around the world. The city of Florence is famous in the world for the leather and the skills of the artisans.

Cause of sanctions against Italy under the fascism after WW1 leather was difficult to get so Gucci tried out new materials for his bags. He tried with synthetic materials and cotton.  After WW2 in 1947 Gucci found out that he could use Japanese bamboo to craft luggage and that how the iconic Bamboo Bag was born.

Guccio Gucci died on 2^nd January 1953 only 15 days after his first store in New York opened. After his death his sons Aldo, Vasco and Rodolfo took the leads of the company. The big success of the following years had to be attributed to the celebrities that wore Gucci’s clothes.

In the 1970s the brand opened its first boutiques in Asia, Tokyo and Honk Kong.

Many other objects were added to Gucci’s product lines in that years as ties, watches, jewelry and eyewear.

Aldo Gucci took the brand to new markets as automobiles. In 1971 made an agreement with American Motors Corporation that with the Gucci’s internal the Hornet station wagon become one of the first car with luxury seats.

After the death of Rodolfo, his son Maurizio took the leadership of the company. He soon revealed to be a terrible leader that he had to sell the company. In 1987 the totally of the company was owned by an investments company called Investcorp. These years the brand had difficult times but with the arrival of Tom Ford as creative director in 1994, Gucci came to dominate the luxury market.

Gucci made some partnerships with UNICEF where stores send a percentage of the sales to United Nations Children’s Fund to help developing countries. The money donated is about 7 million dollars and that makes Gucci one of the biggest donator.

Author: Riccardo Lucchi