Analysing Sabato de Sarno's Gucci Debut (SS24 Review)

Sabato De Sarno’s Gucci debut was planned for the streets of Brera, near the arts university and the students that make the neighborhood such a lively, vibrant part of Milan. A rainy forecast forced a late-breaking venue change—a hard decision but the right one: the skies opened up half an hour before showtime. It meant we were back at the company headquarters on the edge of town where Alessandro Michele held his Gucci shows, but in every other way that counts, this was a clean break from the brand’s recent past. When Kering named De Sarno for the job in January, he was an unknown quantity, with the remit of “reinforcing the house’s fashion authority while capitalizing on its rich heritage,” said the press release announcing his appointment. His predecessor had left in November, after a seven-year run that had reversed the fortunes of the Italian heritage label and changed the look of fashion, but ended amid reports of flattening sales and falling share prices. De Sarno was plucked from the design studio at Valentino, where he rose from knitwear designer to Pierpaolo Piccioli’s closest collaborator over the course of 14 years. His former boss was in the audience today, alongside the likes of Julia Roberts, Jodie Comer, Ryan Gosling, and Paul Mescal. Mark Ronson, who produced the show soundtrack, attended with his wife Grace Gummer. Bad Bunny and Kendall Jenner were both in the crowd, though not together. There was no Jared Leto. The eccentricity that was central to G