MILAN—When Marco Bizzarri became CEO of Bottega Veneta in 2008, the leather-goods brand was flying high, with demand soaring for its trademark woven bags. Even so, the Italian executive worried that fashionistas’ enthusiasm would eventually cool.
So he shook up Bottega’s assortment. He added more shoes and clothes and injected more colorful, fashion-oriented designs from creative director Tomas Maier. Five years later, revenue more than doubled to €1 billion, or about $1.13 billion.
Mr. Bizzarri’s ability to keep a brand hot will be tested in his new role as chief executive of the much larger Gucci brand, which, like Bottega, is owned by French fashion giant Kering .
Gucci needs fixing. Sales started to fall in 2013, a sharp reversal from 17% growth as recently as 2010. The brand was slick and sexy in the 1990s under the creative direction of Tom Ford, but today Gucci’s legendary double-GG marque has gone cold, after years of overreliance on the logo and overexpansion into lower-priced bags and accessories.
After Mr. Bizzarri’s appointment as Gucci CEO in December, one of his first tasks was to pick a new creative director. He installedAlessandro Michele, a Gucci veteran.
On Wednesday in Milan, Mr. Michele’s first women’s collection was saluted as a significant change of direction for Gucci, with a more sophisticated, intellectual and androgynous feel. Aimed at bringing a more contemporary look to the brand, Mr. Michele’s designs didn’t recycle the Gucci’s well-known floral prints, which were evident in past collections by the ousted previous chief designer, Frida Giannini, who was booted in December along with Gucci’s former chief executive Patrizio di Marco.
One of the new looks from Gucci women's Fall-Winter 2015-2016 collection, part of the Milan Fashion Week, unveiled on Wednesday.PHOTO: ANTONIO CALANNI/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Mr. Bizzari’s appointment of Mr. Michele has been questioned in some corners of the fashion industry. Some wonder whether the little-known designer lacks the star power to restore Gucci’s glamour and worry that Mr. Michele, who was Ms. Giannini’s main assistant, may not mark a break from the tenure of his predecessor, whose designs often failed to conjure up the red-hot designs that distinguished Gucci.
“Gucci was all about a sexy lady,” says Michael Ward, chief executive of Harrods in London. “I don’t think she captured the real Gucci woman.”
These concern may have eased after Wednesday’s show, as fashion reviewers agreed that Mr. Michele’s collection was different from anything previously seen at Gucci for a long time.
According to people familiar with the situation, Mr. Bizzarri liked Mr. Michele’s contemporary vision for the house and wanted someone with a deep knowledge of the house’s workings.
Gucci CEO Marco Bizzarri and Emmanuelle Alt, editor of Vogue Paris, at the Gucci show during the Milan Fashion Week on Wednesday. PHOTO: VENTURELLI/GETTY IMAGES FOR GUCCI
Mr. Bizzarri, a longtime fashon executive who earlier in his career was CEO of Kering’s Stella McCartney label, is a trusted lieutenant of the conglomerate’s owner, Francois-Henri Pinault. Last year, Mr. Pinault created a role for him overseeing all of the group’s luxury brands —except Gucci—as part of the French billionaire’s efforts to shed the parent company’s mass-market past and strengthen its luxury division, the conglomerate’s growth driver.
Mr. Bizzarri began to look for ways in which Kering’s brands—which had operated largely separately—could cut costs by sharing suppliers or win better real-estate deals by negotiating store locations for more than one house.
During his eight months in that job, the 52-year-old executive also started fixing problem brands, such as Brioni and Sergio Rossi.
At Brioni, Mr. Bizzarri began to tackle problems with customer service that were damaging the image of a menswear label whose handmade suits cost as much as $8,000. For instance, Mr. Bizzarri found salespeople ignoring customers when he walked into the brand’s Milan boutique. He also learned that Brioni employees had turned down a request by one loyal customer who asked the house’s tailors to craft a suit for him using his own fabric —an unforgivable gaffe in Mr. Bizzarri’s book.
Gucci’s chief designer Alessandro Michele, following the Gucci show in Milan on Wednesday. PHOTO: GIUSEPPE CACACE/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
Mr. Bizzarri fired Brioni’s chief, replacing him with Gianluca Flore, who had worked with Mr. Bizzarri running Bottega stores world-wide.
Mr. Bizzarri also fired the head of Sergio Rossi, which has lost money for the past two years as the once-sexy Italian shoemaker struggled to compete against high-wattage names such as Jimmy Choo or Christian Louboutin.
Gucci—which has €3.5 billion in sales and represents about half of Kering’s luxury-division sales—will undoubtedly be Mr. Bizzarri’s toughest challenge yet.
Mr. Bizzarri, who declined requests for an interview, plans to hone the collection and focus on fewer items, according to Kering. He will push more innovative items, after a tepid response to designs by Ms. Giannini that hewed closely to Gucci’s heritage, including bags and scarves inspired by Jacqueline Kennedy and Grace Kelly.
In his two months at the helm, Mr. Bizzarri has begun to address the serious problems in Gucci’s retail strategy. The brand had opened too many stores and often in the wrong locations, particularly in China. It also began selling in middle-brow retailers such as Macy’s, which hurt its image, and lost a prime spot in Bergdorf Goodman tony store in New York.
According to Mr. Pinault, Mr. Bizzarri will slow store expansion—Gucci added over 220 in the past 5 years—and try to fix the existing network. It will stick to the retail concept launched in recent years by Ms. Giannini and now installed in more than half of Gucci’s 500 stores, as a total redo would be too costly. Instead, Mr. Bizzarri may change the façade of stores in major cities.
Gucci needs to regain ground lost with retailers. In London, Harrod’s has stuck with Gucci but Mr. Ward, the retailer’s CEO, said he would expand Gucci’s space only if the house performs “better in the space they have.”
Just weeks after his appointment, Mr. Bizzarri visited with department-stores executives in New York—something Mr. di Marco had long neglected to do—and toured Gucci spaces.
So far, luxury executives have applauded his appointment. “It’s good news,” said Marigay McKee, president of Saks Fifth Avenue, the high-end U.S. department store. “There’s no fear of failure with him.” - Source WSJ
