Like Tom Ford making Gucci great again? The incredible story of the rebirth of the Italian brand

Now at the head of the Gucci fashion house is Alessandro Michele, a designer and genius who in 2015 rethought the brand concept, blurring the boundaries of gender and adding bright colors and complex references from the 70s and 80s to his collections. According to Lyst, Gucci has not stepped off the podium of the most famous and coveted brands for the past five years. Queues are lining up for sneakers from a collaboration with Adidas, and literally the entire fashion community dreams of the Jackie 1961 bag.

Yes, Alessandro Michele is definitely making history. However, all this would never have happened had it not been for Tom Ford, who in 2002 invited the Italian designer to join the Gucci team. If you dig deeper into the history of the fashion house, we can safely say that without Tom Ford as a creative director, the brand would not have survived to this day.

In the ’90s, it was the American designer who gave a second life to the dilapidated Gucci house and created a sexual revolution in the fashion world. We are ready to sing hymns to the fashion industry’s greatest genius at least every day, but today is a special occasion. The main provocateur Tom Ford is 61 years old. That’s why today we tell a great story about how Tom Ford made Gucci great again.

To understand the full scale of the disaster, we suggest going back to the late ’80s and seeing how things went for the once-great brand. Spoiler: not much. The heirs of the legendary Guccio Gucci transformed the luxury fashion house into a brand under which lighters, ashtrays and even mattresses with logos are produced. Sounds scary, right? Due to the large number of fakes, even the most loyal customers lost interest in Gucci.

And so, in 1990, 29-year-old Tom Ford, as the designer of a women’s collection, joins the crew of a sinking ship and launches a rescue operation. Let’s add right away that the decision is risky and no fashion designer wants to take this position. But not Tom Ford. Prior to Gucci, she worked for Perry Ellis for two years under Marc Jacobs before leaving because she was fed up with American fashion. He later admitted in an interview with The New York Times: “I had to leave America to become a good designer. My own culture has slowed me down. Too bright and colorful style is considered bad taste in America and looks down on it. Style is valued in Europe.”

Four years later, Ford replaces Dawn Mello as creative director and works to create a new DNA. By the way, success did not come immediately – the first spring-summer 1995 collection failed, receiving devastating reviews. After such a response, as Tom Ford later admitted, he realized that he had nothing to lose and decided to break up. Thus was born the provocative fall-winter 1995-1996 collection, which Vogue critic Sarah Mauer called the designer equivalent of sex with a stranger.

Half-open satin blouses, velvet tights, and deep-necked dresses—Tom Ford, like no one else, knew that sex sells, and he focused on it. After the second show, it became clear that Gucci was ready to “get back in the game”.

The sexuality that Tom Ford presented was not vulgar like Versace, but turned out to be moderately provocative. Thanks to him, the expression “limited attractiveness” began to be used and Gucci became the object of desire of millions of women again. Tom Ford, as they say, managed to sit in two chairs, striking a balance between rigor and erotic.

After a while, the famous “white” collection was born, consisting of long white dresses with provocative cuts. By the way, Bella Hadid appeared in one of them at the Cannes Film Festival a few months ago.

At the same time, Ford unveiled the famous red velvet suit that Gwyneth Paltrow wore to the MTV VMAs in 1996, and 25 years later, he quoted himself by wearing an image for the Gucci show.

Ford’s success has been confirmed not only by the close attention of the fashion community, but also by numbers that speak confidently of profit growth. In just a few years, the designer managed to put things right, turning a nearly bankrupt brand into one of the best-selling brands in the industry. In the first nine months of 1995, profits doubled, and revenues hit a record $4 billion at the start of the new millennium.

But not single shows. Advertising campaigns have become an important tool in brand development. And it is not simple, but very clear. Tom Ford has managed to maximize his display of passion.

Of course, she was not alone, she worked with accomplices – photographer Mario Testino and stylist Karine Roitfeld (who later became editor-in-chief of French Vogue). Thanks to this amazing trio, the public experienced a brave new world of advertising.

You can look endlessly at commercial creations, but today we want to tell you a little more about the 2003 campaign, which was the leader in the number of complaints, but still went down in history. Then, Estonian model Carmen Kass posed for Mario Testino. During one shoot, she dropped her blue satin shorts and revealed a candid G-shaped haircut. Brave? Yes. Frankly? Definitely. It’s no surprise that a wave of criticism came to the brand after the photos were published in Vogue. And a petition was even created in England to ban it from being published in magazines. But that, fortunately, did not happen.

A year later, Tom Ford completed his “rescue mission” and left Gucci due to disagreements with management. These 10 years went down in fashion history as a real provocation and an explosion of sexuality. And fans of the American genius still speak of that period with hope. Tom Ford’s great contribution to Gucci history has also been noted by numerous accounts on the social network that should not be mentioned. The profile description of one of them reads: “If this wasn’t made by Tom Ford, is it even Gucci?” No one can definitively answer this question, but everyone had their own thoughts on this.