Few houses have been reborn as completely, or as often, as Gucci. Founded in Florence in 1921 as a maker of leather travel goods, it has been an heirloom label, a cautionary tale of family feuding, and twice in thirty years the most talked-about name in fashion. Each revival was led by one designer who imposed a total point of view: Tom Ford in the 1990s, Alessandro Michele from 2015.
Their stories are worth reading side by side. They show how a heritage house can be remade, and why the remaking always seems to come with an expiry date. The full timeline is on the Gucci brand page.
A house on the precipice
By the early 1990s, Gucci was in trouble. WWD, reconstructing the turnaround in 1996, described the situation when the investment bank Investcorp took full control in September 1993: losses in the tens of millions, slipping sales, unpaid suppliers and staff, a cancelled advertising campaign, and a board of auditors that had asked a Florence court to liquidate the company.
The name had been cheapened in the 1970s and 1980s, WWD noted, through unrestrained licensing that put the interlocking Gs on "everything from key chains to coffee mugs". Maurizio Gucci, the last family member to run the business, had begun the move back upmarket, recruiting Dawn Mello from Bergdorf Goodman in 1989, but his management nearly sank the company.
Tom Ford's Gucci, 1994–2004
Ford, a young American designer who had joined the house in 1990, was promoted to creative director in spring 1994 after Mello returned to New York, according to WWD. "It wasn't until Dawn left that I was forced to really think for myself," he told the paper. His thinking was blunt: "Our beauty ideal is neither safe nor nice, and I realized I wanted to bring an edge back to Gucci that it had had in the Fifties and Sixties."
The autumn/winter 1995 collection, shown in March 1995, was a hit with press and buyers. WWD reported that sales from those collections rose 100 per cent on the year before, as women bought the slinky satin shirts, mohair jackets, velvet hipsters and metallic patent shoes. Ford's role extended far beyond clothes: by 1996 he was overseeing advertising, packaging and store design.
He worked in tandem with Domenico De Sole, the lawyer-turned-chief executive who rebuilt the supply chain and production planning. "This isn't a very complex business; we are not making atomic bombs," De Sole told WWD. When Investcorp sold its remaining stake in 1996, the bank's proceeds from Gucci's flotation totalled $2.1 billion, against a stated investment of $295.8 million.
How the Ford era ended
The partnership ended not over money, according to Ford, but over control. After LVMH built a stake in Gucci Group in 1999, the company turned to PPR (now Kering), which became its controlling shareholder. Negotiations over Ford's and De Sole's future broke down in 2003. "Money had absolutely nothing to do with it. It was about control," Ford told WWD in March 2004, a few days before his final show under Gucci Group, saying it was clear to him that PPR's chief executive, Serge Weinberg, "intends to control the company." Ford left on 30 April 2004.
In the same interview he described his legacy as starting "a trend for designers coming to old houses", citing Marc Jacobs, John Galliano and Alexander McQueen, while acknowledging that Karl Lagerfeld "did it first".
The interlude
PPR replaced Ford with a team rather than a star, a strategy he openly criticised. Frida Giannini, who rose from accessories, eventually led the house alone from 2006, reviving archive prints and bags, until the end of 2014. It was a commercially steady period, but it never captured the culture in the way Ford had.
Alessandro Michele's Gucci, 2015–2022
The second reinvention came from inside. Michele, a long-serving accessories designer, was named creative director on 21 January 2015, according to Kering. He remade the house in a romantic, maximalist and gender-fluid image: layered vintage references, archive motifs and a cast of eccentric characters, all at once.
It worked spectacularly. The Business of Fashion described the 2015–2019 period under Michele and chief executive Marco Bizzarri as "the most successful turnaround in the history of the luxury industry", during which sales more than doubled and profits quadrupled. The fashion editor Alexander Fury, quoted by BoF, put it more pointedly: "Michele added a billion a year to Gucci and people still demand more."
How the Michele era ended
By 2022 the growth had slowed relative to rivals. BoF reported that analysts expected Gucci to grow around 10 per cent that year, against roughly 22 per cent for the wider luxury market according to Bain, and that the group had begun calling for a more "timeless" positioning. Bernstein's Luca Solca told BoF the brand was "suffering from brand fatigue".
Gucci announced Michele's departure on 23 November 2022. His statement, released by Kering, was notably candid: "There are times when paths part ways because of the different perspectives each one of us may have." He has since become creative director of Valentino.
What the two eras share
Set side by side, the Ford and Michele years follow a strikingly similar shape.
- An insider promoted at a low point. Both had worked at Gucci for years before taking charge.
- A total vision. Ford's Gucci and Michele's Gucci were each instantly recognisable, from runway to shop window.
- Commercial results beyond expectation, which raised the bar for what came next.
- An ending framed around control or direction, rather than failure.
The lesson for luxury groups is uncomfortable. The designers who create the biggest surges also create the strongest identities, and strong identities eventually tire.
The current chapter
Since then, Gucci has tried two further approaches. Sabato De Sarno, appointed in 2023, pursued a quieter sensuality before leaving in early 2025. In March 2025 Kering named Demna, artistic director of Balenciaga since 2015, as Gucci's artistic director from July 2025. François-Henri Pinault said his "creative power is exactly what Gucci needs."
Whether Demna becomes Gucci's third great reinventor is a question for future seasons. The history suggests what to watch for: not only a new look, but a point of view total enough to reach every shop window, and a business partner willing to give it room.
Compare Gucci with its Kering stablemates on the brand compare tool, or read about other creative-director eras in the Journal.