Opening Line
The book opens with imagery. The entire first paragraph situates the setting, creating a peaceful, serene and quite beautiful backdrop against which the sudden introduction of extreme violence will be placed in harsh juxtaposition. This is the story of Gucci.
“At 8:30 A.M. on Monday, March 27, 1995, Giuseppe Onorato was sweeping up the leaves that had blown into the entryway of the building where he worked. He had arrived at eight o’clock that morning, as he did every weekday, his first task being to swing open the two great wooden doors of the building at Via Palestro 20. The four-story Renaissance-style building housed apartments and offices and stood in one of the most elegant neighborhoods in Milan. Across the street, amid tall cedars and poplars, stretched the clipped lawns and winding paths of the Giardini Pubblici, an oasis of foliage and serenity in a smoggy, fast-paced city.”
The Wisdom According to Rodolfo
Rodolfo Gucci was one of the five sons of the founder of the House of Gucci. Blessed with movie star good looks and turning twenty just as movies began to adopt sound, he made the first of his nearly fifty movies in 1929. Between life as a movie star and son of a fashion icon, Rodolfo developed a philosophy of life summed up in perfectly parallel imagery:
“Every human creature has three essential things that must always be in harmony among themselves: a heart, a brain, and a wallet. If these three elements don’t work together, problems will come.”
Life Among the Gucci Workforce
To wear a thing with a Gucci label instantly identifies you as, well, as having money to burn. Unless it is a knockoff that looks exactly like an original which confirms once again that there is no correlation between wealth and intelligence. Gucci is also a perfect example of Marx’s theory on how the means of production create alienation in a work force which can make the things that give others a false sense of status but cannot buy afford to own the things they make:
“Downstairs in the factory, sewing machines whirred and cutting machines thumped, all against the backdrop of buzzing fans used to aspirate the glue fumes. In one corner, artisans expertly passed the flames of gas torches over stiff lengths of bamboo, blackening and softening them into gently curving handles for Gucci’s famous bags. Buggies rolled back and forth filled with goods in various stages of production, some to be glued, others for stitching, cutting, or trimming or to have the hardware attached.”
The Catwalk
What does a global fashion icon do when the predatory fangs of hostile takeover are bared by rival companies? Duh, the answer is obvious once you know it it:
“At Gucci’s men’s show in January, Tom Ford had sent white-faced models with bloodred lips striding aggressively down the runway to the theme song from Psycho, baring their teeth like Dracula as though to say `Back off!’ to Arnault. The next day, Zaoui called an LVMH banker in London. `This is an official message,’ he said. `Stop now!’”
