RIMOWA Celebrates 125 Years on the Road of Purposeful Journeys AOC Fashion

In-transition luxury house Gucci presents its Fall Winter 2023 campaign featuring Vittoria Ceretti, Aboubakar Konte and Brando Erba, lensed by photographer David Sims [IG].

Alastair McKimm styles the cast with hair by Paul Hanlon and makeup by Thomas De Kluyver. “Brakhage” by Stereolab is the music in the campaign video.

Wow, the compliments are extraordinary about this new campaign, with unusually lavish words and praise. Maybe it was an over-the-top PR release, but it sounds more AI-driven to us.

Like those Wall Street analysts, Anne of Carversville is in a holding pattern on Gucci and its parent company Kering. Sometimes a clean break is best. But Gucci is also entering territory that is overloaded with competition and major landmines.

Anne of Carversville puts no weight in this FW 2023 campaign, except as an interlude. However, reading the words of other fashion writers, their lavish praise has prompted Anne to step back.

We do agree that the campaign is dramatically different from where the brand has been in about eight years. It’s aloof and a bit haughty. Perhaps Gucci is throwing out the riffraff?

That started as a joke — throw out the riffraff — but it is the goal of the Gucci’s new London flagship.

The Gucci brand proudly calls out the very top floor, which is Europe’s first Gucci Salon. The creative VIP concept was first introduced in LA last April. In addition to carrying a curated edit of current Gucci collections, the London Gucci salon will feature made-to-measure and made-to-order pieces.

In their own PR, Gucci refers to the salon as atmospheric, like an “elegant home”. Its by-appointment nature offers “intimacy and discretion” for the brand’s top spenders, and “denotes a creative empathy between Gucci and its customers” through “creative conversation, exploration and amusement”.

Gucci is not alone in creating exclusive spaces for their best customers. Balenciaga has a dedicated couture store in Paris. In December 2022, Brunello Cucinelli opened an appointment-only store in New York.

At Beijing SKP — the prestigious mall with the highest sales in China — Dior and Chanel have taken the third floor of the building for VIP-only salons, joining Louis Vuitton who was first to open one.

AOC has noted the softness in the aspirational luxury customer market, so I understand the strategic plan.

My point is the wisdom of declaring economic-class exclusivity as a core component in a brand’s DNA at a time when quiet luxury is the opposite trend. Or as a close friend proudly called his new $700 ‘Loro’ baseball cap ‘stealth wealth’.

I noted a few months ago that we didn’t even post the new Gucci Valigeria campaign video, thinking it was just a stop along the way of Gucci’s reinvention. But that mistake was AOC’s.

The video is exactly in sync with the Fall 2023 campaign.

Many luxury brands — Louis Vuitton immediately comes to mind, but also Dior — are redefining luxury in more humanist terms. This branding does not prevent exclusive salons for best customers. But our common humanity — or ubuntu — is part of the luxury brand story.

RIMOWA Celebrates 125 Years on the Road of Purposeful Journeys AOC Fashion

As if on cue, a perfect alternative approach fell into my digital lap — out today. The RIMOWA video is perfect in making my point about the ‘ubuntu’ aspect of so much LVMH marketing.

I understand that Gucci is desperate to shore up their business in China. And this marketing direction may be perfect for China. But it’s tricky brand DNA for America and most of Europe at present.

It’s early in Gucci’s reinvention, which is why AOC is in wait and see mode. But we caution a new Gucci lacking soul and spirit, governed only by making rarified, elitist, class-driven impressions. ~ Anne