One of the grandsons who rejoined the business during this explosion was Maurizio. The brand’s wild expansion of the 1960s and ’70s-to Paris, Tokyo, Beverly Hills, and beyond-allowed for Guccio’s sons and their sons to each have a piece: one overseeing design, one leather production, one the accessories line, one the American business. Americans were the company’s best customers. Women spotted in Gucci included Elizabeth Taylor, Sophia Loren, Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Jacqueline Bouvier, and Queen Elizabeth (when she was still just a princess), and just days before Guccio’s death in 1953, three of his sons opened a store at 58th St and Fifth Avenue in New York City. When tourists finally streamed back to Italy at midcentury, a leather handbag was the perfect souvenir splurge. The practicalities of World War II and trade embargoes forced the company to innovate: They used veal skins, wicker, and wood in their handbags when they couldn’t get premium leathers, all of which became Gucci signatures. The early decades of Gucci were shaped by the era’s politics. In her seminal text House of Gucci, reporter Sara Gay Forden recounts the story of Gucci as it began with Guccio, who opened a leather shop in Florence in 1921, at age 40. On October 28, 1972, Maurizio and Patrizia were married, despite his father’s demand to the cardinal of Milan to halt the wedding.īut before their squabbles were splashed across newspapers around the world, before hit men and Lady Gaga movie adaptations, there was Guccio Gucci. By April 1971, Rodolfo’s brother Aldo was hinting to the New York Times that he wanted a young family member to lead, suggesting his own sons were not up to the task. When Maurizio left, the Reggianis took him in and gave him work in their trucking business, but Patrizia knew his destiny was to return to the family empire-and run it. “I will disinherit you! You will not get a cent from me, and neither will she!” With that threat, Maurizio packed a suitcase and never came back. “This isn’t about love, this is about her wanting to get her hands on our money. But his father, Rodolfo Gucci, the son of Guccio Gucci, who founded the luxury fashion house, remained suspicious. They ran in the same society circles, but they were equal opposites: he was tall and awkward, she was the petite life of the party, and with her huge purple eyes she frequently drew comparisons to Elizabeth Taylor. Maurizio met Patrizia at a party in Milan in November 1970. His father was extremely protective because Maurizio was his only child, and Maurizio’s mother had died when he was five it was just the two men together for 17 years-until Patrizia Reggiani came along. The doomed heir was 22 years old and still living at home, but one of the most eligible bachelors in Italy. He’d heard she was an uncouth social climber, a party girl who came to class wearing tiny cocktail dresses and fur coats from the night before.
Maurizio Gucci’s father hated his girlfriend from the moment he learned about her.
0 kommentar(er)
