The 2023 appointment seems like a natural evolution from 1994, when that young (and brilliant) Texan designer named Tom Ford came to the helm of Gucci.
Perhaps the most anticipated announcement in recent times, coming right at the end of Haute Couture week in Paris: Gucci named the brand’s new creative director, Sabato De Sarno, and did so in social mode, with a post on his Instagram page, in which he officially introduced the post-Alessandro Michele designer.
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Neapolitan-born, Sabato De Sarno boasts a well-established career in ready-to-wear: he began his career at Prada in 2005, then landed in the offices of Dolce & Gabbana, before arriving at Valentino in 2009 where, alongside Pierpaolo Piccioli, he held positions of increasing responsibility, until he was appointed fashion director to oversee the men’s and women’s collections.
Surveying his archive, his approach appears essential, with a rigorous elegance. In short, the antithesis of Michele.
Read Also: “Sipario: Alessandro Michele leaves the Gucci stage.”
Gucci, part of the colossal Kering Group, is once again betting on a face-and a name that is little known in the industry; just as it did in 2015 with the diamond in the rough Alessandro Michele and, even earlier, when it appointed a young Texan designer named Tom Ford, back in 1994.
For the stylistic figure and fundamental aesthetic of the creative language, the 2023 appointment of Gucci’s creative director seems a natural evolution from 2004, when Tom Ford decided to leave the Maison.
A legacy never again picked up, from a purely aesthetic point of view, by any of his predecessors.
Nostalgic Gucci fans have hoped – and bet – on a resounding return of the designer at the helm of the Maison, almost 20 years later; however, De Sarno‘s appointment bodes well for a return “to the origins” of the brand, which under Michele‘s leadership has acquired a nostalgic and gentle attitude and which, now, needs a return to the essentiality of form.
De Sarno, then, will be tasked with taking over the brand’s stylistic direction for all product categories: lifestyle, accessories, men’s, women’s, leather goods; adding figures to Gucci‘s turnover-which already boasts a turnover of more than 2.58 billion euros annually; shuffling the letters of the Maison’s vocabulary to create a new language, a new idea of “Luxury.”
He will make his debut on the Milanese catwalks in September 2023 with his first women’s collection; we just have to wait anxiously for his interpretation of feminine elegance, and speculate by whom he was inspired.
