The 93-year-old Gucci brand was long a powerhouse for the luxury group Kering. But in recent years, the Italian fashion house seemed to have lost its way.
Its ready-to-wear collections swung from 1960s to '70s references and beyond. The most recent spring-summer collection was a melange of rock, '70s and Japanese influences. Now Gucci is finally getting its long-anticipated makeover.
Frustrated by the protracted decline in sales, Kering, which is based in France, announced on Friday the departure of Gucci's two top executives. The dual punch of corporate and creative changes, while widely expected in the industry, is the biggest shake-up at a luxury brand since Tom Ford and Domenico de Sole left Gucci in 2004.
And it comes as many luxury brands seek to keep their cachet and revenue in an increasingly uncertain global economic environment, with dizzying changes in consumer tastes and increasing competition from smaller brands.
Kering said Gucci's chief executive, Patrizio di Marco, would step down on Jan. 1 and be replaced by Marco Bizzarri, head of the group's luxury division for couture and leather goods. In addition, Gucci's creative director, Frida Giannini, will leave in February, after the presentation of the brand's fall-winter women's wear collection.
In announcing the management changes, Kering's chairman and chief executive, François-Henri Pinault, said he hoped they would inject "new momentum" at Gucci and thanked di Marco and Giannini - who are also a couple and have a child together - for their contributions to the group.
Kering, third-largest luxury group in the world, after LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton of France and Richemont of Switzerland, includes Balenciaga, Alexander McQueen and Yves Saint Laurent in its stable of luxury brands. It has made numerous changes in its luxury division this year, including naming new chief executives at Brioni and Christopher Kane.
Sales at the Gucci brand, which accounts for nearly a third of Kering's annual revenue, have failed to match the performance of the group's smaller labels in recent years. Luxury consumers, particularly in China, have turned away from Gucci's signature logo-emblazoned goods in favour of subtler fashion statements.
Bizzarri, who will take the reins from di Marco, is a former head of Bottega Veneta, another group brand, which has managed to maintain robust sales despite the recent global downturn. di Marco also previously led Bottega. A search is already underway for Ms. Giannini's replacement, and the company hopes to name a designer in early March.
Bizzarri's appointment will provide a sense of continuity for Gucci, and Pinault said in a statement that he anticipated no strategic changes to the brand's already stated plans to become ever more exclusive.
Under Giannini's leadership, Gucci never had the same fashion buzz that made its name under the previous creative director, Tom Ford. But Giannini, who became creative director for accessories after his departure in 2004 and then took over as sole creative director for women's wear, men's wear and accessories in 2005, brought a more accessible edge to the brand.
Her first major bag as creative director - Flora, a stylised archival flower print that Ford had rejected - was a consumer hit.
In recent years, however, Gucci struggled to define a consistent feel, including moves from understatement to excess and back. At the same time, its accessories business plumbed the archives for "classics."
Pinault said in an interview, "Over the last five-seven years, there has been a great change in the world of luxury in terms of scale and growth, and we are facing the question of how to maintain exclusivity while continuing to grow."
He added: "I think to answer that, we need a new point of view on both creative and management sides, which was why it was time to make changes at Gucci."
Gucci's sales in the first nine months of this year slumped by 3.5 percent from the same period in 2013, to 2.5 billion euros, or about $3.1 billion. That stood in contrast to a 12 percent sales growth at Bottega Veneta over the same period and a 26 percent growth at Yves Saint Laurent.
"Gucci is one the most prominent luxury mega-brands," Luca Solca, a luxury analyst at Exane BNP Paribas in London, said in a note to clients. "It will benefit from new ideas and fresh energy. The key to stay relevant in luxury goods is continuing reinvention."
Like its rivals, including Louis Vuitton and Prada, Gucci has struggled to navigate rapidly shifting tides in consumer tastes and shopping habits as a younger and technically skilled generation of luxury goods buyers has shifted the competitive dynamic, enabling less well-established labels to vie for attention alongside heritage-rich industry mainstays.
"The relationship of consumers toward luxury brands is changing," said Claudia d'Arpizio, who specializes in luxury goods as a partner with Bain in Milan. "It is also very individualistic. These people are not just looking for status symbols, the ability to show they are a connoisseur."
©2014 The New York Times News Service
