December 26, 2011 |
“Work it Girl! Owww!” laughed Beyoncé as she skipped past Frida Giannini, while the Gucci designer shimmied and boogied around the pool on the rooftop of Soho House, Los Angeles. For, besides directing Italy’s largest and most profitable fashion label, which is celebrating its 90th anniversary this year, Giannini also happens to dance better than any other designer on the Continent, and music is often the driving force of her ideas. I should know, I was dancing with her that day in Soho House – at the brunch dance party she co-hosted with Jay-Z, where Marc Ronson waxed the stacks as the sun set over the City of Angels.
Giannini and Gucci did not so much celebrate the Grammys in LA this year as take over the city – then again, that’s the way Giannini likes things, getting her vision out there, with herself very much in charge. The terrace that day was crammed with beauties – from Poppy Delevigne and actress Camilla Belle, looking babelicious in satin Gucci trousers and top, to cool dudes like Will Smith, holding court in one corner.
“Great to see you getting down with all your crew, Frida!” added Beyoncé, dressed in a pink Gucci jumpsuit.
It was very much Gucci’s Grammy moment that began when Jennifer Lopez presented Giannini with UNICEF’s inaugural Women of Compassion award, in recognition of Gucci’s $9m commitment to schools in Africa.
Lunch was staged in a striking Spanish/Tuscan villa, a combination of two properties, the former residence of Rod Stewart and the quiet wooded retreat of Gregory Peck, replete with giant redwoods and several Andy Warhols, including a blue Jackie O. I joined Giannini at the main table sitting between Mary J Blige and Belle, enjoying a lunch of burrata mozzarella and Alaskan halibut with black rice. I know, I know, it’s a dirty job, but someone has to step into the breach….
“I keep expecting Colombo to walk in any minute and solve a crime. This beautiful place is so amazingly Los Angeles,” laughed Giannini as she pulled on a Rothmans Light post lunch, before posing with Lopez.
Lopez’s twins star in the current ad campaign for Gucci children’s collection, an idea Giannini got last year in Cannes, watching the kids splashing about in the hotel pool of Eden Roc, the finest hotel on the Mediterranean. All week, a giant billboard on Sunset Boulevard near Chateau Marmont featured Lopez and her twins, Max and Emme, frolicking about on Malibu beach, shot by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott. A portion of the sales of Gucci children’s collection goes directly to UNICEF, with whom Giannini has visited Malawi to witness school projects being financed by the brand.
“I love coming to Los Angeles; we shoot all our ad campaigns here, as the light is so special all year round. Plus, you get the sense that the ghosts of Elizabeth Taylor and Clark Gable are peeping over your shoulder. LA might be a young city historically but, coming from Rome, I love all the faux castles – it’s a bit like being on a movie set at Cinecitta. And, as a Roman who grew up near the sea, I love the smell of LA. It’s got the same sea scent,” smiled Giannini, after we had bopped to a mix of hits by her old favourite Madonna.
Three weeks later I was backstage with Giannini after her opulent, seductive and giddily glorious take on glamour in the Gucci winter collection, staged in its custom-made show theatre.
Bedecked in colorful fedora hats, sporting super-snazzy crocodile boots and strutting out in goat-hair jackets, the models in this show represented ladies who demanded, indeed craved, attention. And forget about sombre, sober colour palette, as Giannini whipped up a heady concoction of bold turquoises, imperial Roman purples and shiny emerald greens.
“I wanted something cinematic – glamour not in a predictable, boring way, but with real mystery,” a California-tanned Giannini told me. “I was inspired by archive images of Anjelica Huston photographed by Bob Richardson and also by Florence Welch, who I feel today embodies the woman I had in mind when designing the collection. The woman is a diva, with a cinematic allure and a strong seductive power. She is at once mysterious and entrancing. So it is really a mix of the 1940s and the 1970s.”
Best of all, Giannini really put the Gucci atelier into overdrive, particularly with a stunning mink and fox grey coat of exceptional technical dexterity that had editors scribbling in their note pads. Plus, the show announced a bold new silhouette, maxi coats, further elongated by being paired with micro belts, mega-flared trousers and exaggerated masculine collars. Audacious shapes for audacious women.
Giannini’s bright mix continued in some natty new bags, especially a revamped Bardot, first launched in 1975, which features a spur closure snap and artily dyed middle section.
Significantly, the collection was also the first that mined the modernist DNA of Gucci, one that Giannini’s most noted predecessor, Tom Ford, who departed the label some six years ago, riffed in frequently. Semi-sheer evening looks, bold fox boleros and racy satin cocktails all recalled Ford’s time with Gucci. Two editors tweeting behind this reviewer and three experienced editors all commented on the similarities with Giannini’s famous forerunner.
That said, Giannini gave all these elements a far more feminine touch, and made them very much her own. Moreover, in the wake of the ultimately tepid reviews by serious critics of Ford’s own first women’s signature collection last September, shown in New York to a highly restricted group of fashion insiders, none of whom were allowed to photograph the clothes, this collection was ultimately a significant success for Giannini. Why? Because she recuperated the glamour of Gucci on her own terms.
A love of glamour I first appreciated in July 2008 down in Rome, Giannini’s home town. That’s when Gucci took its cruise 2009 collection to the top of one of Rome’s highest hills, the Gianicolo, where under umbrella pines and before an audience of Hollywood, politico honchos and coolly haughty Italian aristos, designer Giannini unveiled a breakout show for the house.
Staged in the charming Villa Aurelia, the show also celebrated the 70th anniversary of Gucci’s iconic Rome boutique on tony via Condotti. Iconic because the store’s opening connected Gucci with the Hollywood heavy hitters in town to shoot movies in Cinecitta and to indulge in La Dolce Vita. That party also celebrated Gucci’s remarkable financial performance under Giannini. Sales in her first three years in charge soared cumulatively by 46% to €2.175 billion. Last year, they hit €2.666 billion, making Gucci one-third larger than both Prada and Armani. It’s a remarkable performance, and one Giannini is justly proud of as Gucci celebrates its 90th anniversary and Giannini increasingly focuses on the brand’s remarkable Florentine heritage.
“It is a wonderful testament to the vision of Guccio Gucci, who founded his company in 1921 on a vision and values that are still as important to us today as they were then,” says Giannini on the label reaching such a milestone this year. “It makes me feel both humbled and proud to be the creative director on such an occasion. Especially at a time when our customers are more interested than ever in the notion of provenance and authenticity. I believe that what really sets Gucci apart from others today is that our heritage has allowed the house to become known both for its Italian craftsmanship and also its innovation and fashion authority. That is a powerful combination. We call it our Forever Now spirit. And the new Gucci Museum, which we will open in the heart of Florence at the end of September, will bring this to life.”
Back at the Villa Aurelia, before an audience that included Claire Danes and then-boyfriend (now husband) Hugh Dancy, Rome mayor Gianni Alemanno, Maria Grazia Cucinotta and enough local princes and countesses to form an aristocratic regiment, Giannini sent out clothes that cleverly mixed flirtation and elegance, the kind your cool big sister would wear if she were a princess with a rock groupie history. The ghost of Ozzie Clark whispered through that collection with billowing sleeve silk dresses in animal prints. Not so surprising, since Giannini admits a year spent in Gucci’s London studio was formative in her development. “We seemed to work 80 hours most weeks then, but I always found time to hear live music most weekends. Whether it was in Soho or near Hoxton Square, the clubs always rocked, and the English sense of rocker chic is something I have always loved,” she told me.
Giannini is such a music nut that she handpicks each soundtrack for every Gucci show, getting ace DJ Michel Gaubert, who creates the sounds for the likes of Chanel, to blend her choices seamlessly. “Music has been a personal passion since I was a teenager and it certainly plays an important role also while I am working,” she says. “There is always music playing in the office, just to set the creative tone and to get everyone in a good mood. As far as my collections are concerned, I am frequently inspired by the looks of musicians or even album covers. There is a huge amount of creativity and originality coming from the music world and I find it very stimulating.”
The UK stimulus was again apparent this summer in Gucci’s latest menswear show, inspired by Michael Caine. Her Get Carter moment opened with a sample from the cult gangster movie’s score by the late great Roy Budd, then blended British tailoring, Italian insouciance and arty sportswear. Giannini turned trench coats inside out, spread jerkins flowing at the back and even invented a new garment – a cape meets mackintosh, finished with hood. Tops in micro quilts, a material traditionally used in fencing, and hooded parkas thermo-sealed in leather all ramped up the active quotient, so even though the show echoed gentlemen’s clubs in Pall Mall, it never felt retro.
“Of course Michael Caine was the influence. Doesn’t everyone think he is chic and stylish?” Giannini told me backstage. She still won’t be drawn on September’s womenswear show, though, insisting, “It’s still too early to tell you. However, Fashion Week will be the occasion when we officially open the Gucci Museum, so it will be an emotional time for sure, with a special dinner in the Hall of the 500 at the Palazzo Vecchio, one of Florence’s most historic buildings, which is right next to the building that will house the museum.”
Always courteous in conversation, Giannini is nonetheless media wary, arguably a by-product of her succeeding Tom Ford, who managed to combine being matinée idol and designer. His exit following Gucci’s takeover by French owners PPR never did go down well with many fashionistas, who saw it as a soulless corporation seeing off a crowd favourite. She admits her role can be demanding, though: “It is obviously a big responsibility and that weighs on me, but now that I have been in the role for a number of years I have learned to manage that pressure.” And, by dint of her unquestioned commercial success and several great collections (for which she is also quick to credit “the great teams around me”), that view of the company has mellowed. Her Tashkent training session show of September 2009, inspired by ikat fabric bought in an Uzbekistan market and high-tech hardware was the Milan show of that season.
“It’s a partnership of tailoring together with lots of new techniques and fabrics that come in the extreme sports, stuff I never did,” joked Giannini, who nonetheless was a showjumping prizewinner in her teens – as her lithe figure attests – and now dresses Charlotte Casiraghi in all her equestrian events.
But there has been little time for horse riding or dancing recently for Giannini, so it’s been almost a year since we last grooved in Milan, at her birthday party in funky Milan club Plastic. There, apart from two local editors who had created a T-Shirt with a sketch of Giannini as a rocker in leather jeans belting out a hit, I was the only editor in il nightclub. And, despite my Irish blarney and dance moves, the nearest I got to spending a night with Giannini was wearing her rocker T-shirt to bed. Some Irishmen do not have ALL the luck.
Text Godfrey Beeny
Photographer Nobuyoshi Araki
Fashion Editor Sophia Neophitou
