History of Gucci

Marina Gorodischeva
3 min readMar 4, 2015

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Gucci is a world renowned Italian leather and fashion accessories brand. It is widely considered as the top-selling Italian brand and operates in more than 270 stores worldwide. The company sells its products like Gucci watches through upscale franchisees and department stores. The brand’s prominence can be estimated with its overall market value that is more than $12 billion, recorded in 2013. During the same year, the firm recorded sales of over $4.5 billion and was ranked as the 38th most valuable brand in the world. In order to assess the brand’s success, it is important to have a look at its history. Here is a brief look at its past and how the firm rose to such great levels of prominence:

The firm was founded in 1921 by Guccio Gucci. As a young man, Gucci was interested in the production of clothing, leather goods and other fashion products. This made him establish a shop in 1920 that sold leather goods, this shop later became the base for his company. Gucci always organized his workrooms in a specific manner, which assisted him in his industrial methods of production. Although, he preferred such methods, he also preferred to apply the traditional aspects of fabrication.

With the help of his three sons, Gucci expanded the company to other parts of Italy. By 1953 the company established its offices in New York. During the decades of 1950s and 1960s, Gucci became the choice of many celebrities. This helped in making the brand more prominent among the global audience. In 1960, the brand launched purses with a snaffle-bit decoration, which became a huge fashion trend at that time. In 1964, the brand’s launched lush butterfly pattern, this was created for silk foulards.

The brand introduced “Rolls-Royce” luggage in 1970 and throughout the 70s, it was commonly spotted at lifestyle magazines as the choice of famous celebrities. During 1980s, the Gucci family faced severe internal disputes and all of this bought the brand at the brink of disaster. But miraculously the firm avoided a major catastrophe.

In 1990, the firm hired Tom Ford; he worked hard to associate the brand with the sense of sensuality and adventure, especially through Gucci watches. This inspired fashion enthusiasts from all across the world to take greater interest in what Gucci had to offer, especially when it came to Gucci watches. The risks that Ford took paid off and the brand once again was making headlines all across the world throughout the 90s.

In 2003, some 60 percent ownership of the Gucci Group was bought by Pinault-Printemps-Redoute, a French conglomerate. Later on in 2004, the firm announced that Tom Ford will be leaving and will be replaced by a several young designers that rose to prominence from the firm’s staff. In 2005, the Gucci Group announced Frida Giannini as its creative director who worked immensely on women’s accessories and Gucci watches. Although she stepped down in late 2014, she further contributed to the success of the firm through her ideas.

So, this is a brief history of the Gucci brand, especially Gucci watches. This shows that the firm has seen both good and bad days, though it has been the hard work of its personnel that has truly made it a successful organization.

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