Brands: Bizzarri Wins, and Gucci Is Cool Once Again

-Fast Company

Gucci, you may have noticed, is blowing up.

Walking down the streets of New York or Milan, twentysomethings are wearing $490 swimsuits splashed with enormous Gucci logos, $1,350 hoodies featuring goofy cartoon images of the creative director’s dogs Orso and Bosco, and $650 fanny packs featuring the brand’s signature diamond print. Fashionable young women are now carrying updated versions of $5,000 classic Gucci bags, this time blinged out with sequins in the shape of lightning bolts and hashtag-worthy words like “Guccify.” (In case you’re wondering, this totally made-up term means to infuse something with Gucci-ness.)

Not long ago, these items would have been considered tacky. Gucci had a brief moment of streetwear popularity back in the ’90s, when rap stars and gangsters clothed themselves head to toe in products plastered with Gucci logos–some of it authentic, some bootleg. Back then, Gucci’s leadership didn’t want the brand associated with these consumers, so the brand aggressively sued manufacturers of counterfeit products.

Today, Gucci has shed its once-imperious identity. The brand now partners with Harlem tailor Dapper Dan, the man who first made Gucci popular with the hip-hop crowd, and rappers are now all over Gucci again. In 2016, the name Gucci was splashed all over the lyrics of 2 Chainz, Pusha T, and Tyga. On Instagram, meanwhile, Gucci invented its own meme, poking fun at itself as if to say, “We know fashion can be silly sometimes, we get it.” In conjunction with the launch of a new watch collection, the company created the hashtag #TFWGucci (thanks for watching), pairing funny images featuring a timepiece with humorous captions. A hand wearing a watch cradles a statue of a bust and is paired with the phrase, “When you wake up late for work and realize you are actually a clay head.” Another features a swimmer wearing a watch saying, “When you have Aquagym at 3pm but you need to accessorize your existential angst eternally.”

GUCCI GETS ITS COOL BACK

It is possible to identify the exact moment Gucci got its cool back. In January 2015, Gucci appointed a new CEO, Marco Bizzarri, who had previously led Stella McCartney and Bottega Veneta. Bizzarri immediately brought on a new creative director, Alessandro Michele, who earned his design chops apprenticing under Karl Lagerfeld and Silvia Venturini Fendi, and is known for his eccentric maximalist taste. In three short years, the pair have transformed Gucci into an exciting, modern brand that has won over the under-35 set–an achievement that recently earned the company a place on Fast Company’s list of the World’s 50 Most Innovative Companiesin 2018.