by Fabrizio Modina
In a recent and rather unsettling statement, Luca de Meo — the new CEO of the Kering Group, a businessman pulled from the automotive sector to balance Gucci’s books — declared: “We need to put the customer back at the center, so we no longer depend solely on the vision of the creative director.”
To recap: a manager who, until just a few months ago, was dealing with bumpers and windshield wipers, after being hired with a €20 million signing bonus and an annual salary of about €5 million, is now telling us that the designer no longer matters, that creativity is a risk, and that the path forward lies in collections generated from sales data analysis.
This “strategy” will enforce a six-month development cycle — a ludicrous idea that will inevitably come at the expense of both concept and execution quality, delivering yet another fatal blow to the already lifeless Made in Italy. Gradually, the only remaining difference between Gucci and Zara will be the price tag.
So — has AI won? From now on, will it be artificial intelligence that dresses us, cutting down design department costs so managers can further multiply their salaries?
Read more: Fewer Managers, more DesignersDe Meo attributes only 20% of a brand’s essence to the vision of its designers. Perhaps it’s just as well that Armani and Versace are no longer with us — unlike us, they’ve been spared this torment.
The great crisis that fashion is currently facing may well be a karmic consequence of the bulimic greed of the major brands which, over the past fifteen years, have continuously inflated their prices — dictated by the white collars in the upper offices — without bothering to nurture the skills of a new generation of designers. These young professionals are now technically unprepared and incapable not only of proposing but even of imposing new energy into this dying industry — thus giving, in a way, some credence to the aforementioned CEO.
When even the European Commission has to step in to fine Gucci, Chloé, and Loewe (owned respectively by the Kering, Richemont, and LVMH groups) for violating EU competition rules, after confirming the price-fixing practices imposed on their retailers, it becomes painfully clear that something fundamental is no longer working.
Yohji Yamamoto, a man who truly invented fashion, certainly doesn’t mince words. At the end of the latest Paris Fashion Week, he declared:
“Fashion has become a joke. It’s only about money. The main companies in the industry are like children playing soccer, all running after the same ball. They don’t think about their customers. I just think they have too much money, so they don’t need to work hard. They’re always floating on money.”
Yamamoto is one of those former young revolutionaries who, in the early 1980s, transformed fashion by taking every possible risk. Independent men and women who experimented, failed, triumphed, and built companies that grew strong — without collapsing under the desire to conquer the world economically.
That independent system has been completely devoured: today, the luxury boutiques in prime locations around the globe all belong to just four holding groups that allow no “infiltration.” As if that weren’t enough, they also control 90% of the media. In such an apocalyptic scenario, no young designer, no matter how talented, can hope to emerge.
With a touch of optimism (and perhaps a bit of hypocrisy, given his habit of jumping from one brand to another), Raf Simons said:
“What would really shake up fashion—not in terms of one individual designing collections? If every creative director in the world walked away from their position and said they no longer wanted to do anything for these brands. We should all become independent, all at the same time. That’s my happy, romantic thought.”
Alessandro Sartori, artistic director of Zegna, lifts the lid on Pandora’s box:
“This is a very interesting moment for designers. But I’ll ask one question: does that designer feel right for that brand, or is he simply bringing himself wherever he goes?”
In other words: if Raf Simons, Alessandro Michele, Nicolas Ghesquière, Riccardo Tisci, and many others were given the chance to design collections under their own names — and not those of people who have been dead for a hundred years — wouldn’t fashion regain its identity and freshness?
Stefano Gabbana captures the mood perfectly, with a note of melancholy, writing on Instagram:
“Once, we were free to express ourselves with volumes, proportions, and ideas. We didn’t even really know what we were doing, but that freedom allowed us to experiment without limits.”
In a piece that collects the words of figures far more distinguished than myself, I can’t close without quoting Alessandro Calascibetta, Editor-in-Chief of Style Magazine, who — as a rare voice against the current (since fashion media today is almost entirely subservient to the holding companies) — writes courageously:
“Designers are really trying; the future of fashion should be in their hands rather than in those of the CEOs, who in the long run have lost sight of what fashion truly means.”
Amen.