Models walk the runway during the Gucci collection show as part Milan Fashion Week. Photo: AFP
Ancora red is out; emerald green is in. Or so it seemed during the Gucci show at the opening of Milan Fashion Week, where it was as if Sabato De Sarno, the designer who abruptly left his job this month, had practically never even been there.
Fashion, it turns out, is fully capable of its own revisionist history. It’s that kind of moment.
De Sarno was not mentioned in the show notes, which instead spoke of “many owners and guardians” and “generational shifts”.
His signature shade of burgundy, which he named “ancora” after the Italian word for “again” – as in, “I want it again, again,” an idea that proved more like wishful thinking than reality – was likewise gone.
At the end of the show, the design team came out en masse in matching green sweatshirts to take a bow.
The runway formed two enormous interlocking Gs that were reflected in the mirrored ceiling, where the audience could also see the usual front row celebrity crew – Jessica Chastain, Dev Patel, Daisy Edgar-Jones, Jannik Sinner – as well as a live orchestra playing an original score by Justin Hurwitz, the composer behind La La Land.
No matter who is behind the curtain, the brand lives on. Even if in a holding pattern. Even if in a mishmash of a show that seemed as unconvincing as the man whose contributions it appeared to be trying to erase.
Read more: Gucci's design head Sabato De Sarno exits, just weeks before next fashion show
For still on view was the style that De Sarno brought to Gucci when he was hired in 2023 and charged with cleansing the brand of Alessandro Michele’s excess and turning it into a “timeless luxury” name.
Not surprisingly, perhaps, given that up until about two weeks ago, De Sarno was still designing the collection. The team simply added in a little bit of history from here, references from there.
De Sarno was present, for example, in the lingerie-inspired halter-neck lace bodysuits paired with frumpy tweed pencil skirts, and in the candy pink slip dresses.
In the super-short boxy tweed tunics that had apparently replaced his favourite shorts. In the lace skirts embroidered with big floral paillettes beneath granny mohair sweater sets.
And in the menswear versions of all the above that came after (the show was oddly bifurcated, so rather than weaving the menswear and womenswear together, as is usually the case in dual-gendered shows, the men’s followed the women’s – in both reality and ideas).
See the rounded tweed overcoats atop slithery, double-breasted suits; beaded shirts beneath sweater vests; that same mohair, in a body-con cardigan.
Along with all that were some faux fur bedroom slippers reminiscent of the Michele-era fur-lined slides, a rhinestone-logo velvet bodysuit and a backless lame fabric jersey T-shirt dress circa Tom Ford time.
And even some Prada-like ’90s fugliness of kerchiefs and off-kilter colour combinations, like bright purple and lime green, or burnt sienna and gray.
Read more: And... he's back! Alessandro Michele puts on maximalist debut for Valentino
That after two years De Sarno’s signature could be reduced to a mere handful of familiar styles is a reflection of why his tenure was as abbreviated as the hemlines he favoured.
And why, in the story of the brand, he is more likely to be a footnote than a protagonist.
His vision of Gucci always seemed like a palate cleanser, rather than a meaty main course. It wasn’t bad. It just wasn’t memorable.
Which is not to say he did not matter. He was fashion’s equivalent of a bridge boyfriend, creating some distance from the drama of Michele’s Gucci, and he should get credit for that.
He had the thankless task of making the necessary space for whatever big idea comes next – while also, probably unwittingly, demonstrating the need for a big idea.
One more expansive, and startling, than a horsebit or a colour alone. One that, next time around, no one will be able to forget. – ©2025 The New York Times Company
