Princess Diana’s ‘fun mum’ style inspired Gucci’s London fashion show
Olly Alexander in a red codpiece (a suggestive, harness-like accessory attached to the front of men’s hose) at Eurovision. Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes. Beckhams-on-the-Cotswolds. There are some visions which sear themselves indelibly on the brain, no matter how hard we might try to delete them.
Which emblems leap to mind when the rest of the world thinks about Britishness? For Gucci’s new designer, Sabato De Sarno, it’s Princess Diana in her beloved Philadelphia Eagles green and silver varsity jacket, on the school run with Princes William and Harry in 1991. “It seems to have been stolen from a wardrobe that is not hers,” he told The Guardian in advance of his Cruise 2025 show, held in London on Monday night. “I like personalities that speak about something contradictory.”
Designers, especially Italian ones, seem fascinated by British traditions and the British reflex of subverting them. Diana, increasingly, is a rich mine. Whatever you thought of her style at the time, with distance it becomes more interesting; a distinctive time capsule, serving as a message board for whatever was going on in her life at the time. She was consummate at turning the glamorous clothes she felt herself trapped into wearing into a form of propaganda for whatever she wished to communicate to the public, without having to go down the tiresome route of persuading the courtiers at the palace to authorise a press release.
Fun Mum Diana (versus stuffy Charles) brought out the baseball caps and American college jackets. Staggeringly young, newly married Diana, keen to please her new in-laws, saw her in checks and tweeds at Balmoral. Then came the pussy bows as she willed herself older and those “fairy tale” ball gowns.
For his London Gucci show, De Sarno took all these elements and put them through his clean, pared back filter. The college jackets, minus any embellishment or college names, worn with slim, below-the-knee skirts, became chic elements in De Sarno’s sleek play on proportions. Instead of focussing on the high waisted trousers, cropped jackets and maxi lengths that are currently everywhere, he lowered waists, raised hemlines.
Why show in London? Because it’s now expected that brands will host guests for these resort shows (the collections that land in stores between the main ready-to-wear ones) in glamorous locations outside the main fashion capitals of Paris and Milan. Most international invitees enjoy coming to London, especially when they’re put up at The Savoy.
There’s even a genuine connection between Gucci and the city. Guccio Gucci began working as a porter at The Savoy in 1897 before opening a luggage shop in Florence in 1921. What would he have made of his label holding court at his old workplace? From The Savoy, guests were taken to the Tate Modern for the show itself.
De Sarno has not had the easiest of times since taking the creative control of Gucci last year. His arrival coincided with a global slowdown in demand for luxury fashion. Last month, Kering, the conglomerate that owns Gucci, issued a profit warning, saying it anticipated a first quarter drop in operating profits of as much as 45 per cent. This is not De Sarno’s fault – his designs, which represent a dramatic rupture with his predecessor, Alessandro Michele’s, exuberant maximalism, have been slow reaching the stores.
But Gucci threw everything at this show. Against the river backdrop of St Paul’s, the Walkie Talkie building et al, François-Henri Pinault, the chief executive of Kering, beamed confidently alongside his wife, Salma Hayek. As well as drafting in Andrew Scott (smaller than you might think), Paul Mescal, Demi Moore (also tiny), Dua Lipa and Kate Moss, Debbie Harry sat in the front row with the Gucci Blondie handbag, an update on a 70s classic that is available to buy from Tuesday.
On the catwalk, you couldn’t move for Blondie handbags – a chunky, squishy kind-of saddle bag in three sizes. Bags were a big part of De Sarno’s proportions game, with ultra large and very neat ones adding to the jigsaw.
As for the clothes, De Sarno’s stripped back first collection last September was criticised by some for being dull. True, it lacked the fireworks of his predecessor, but those fireworks had become repetitive. Anecdotally, lots of real women seem to like what he’s doing – and this resort show, which incorporated horsebit motifs on suede, delicate embroideries, intricate glass bead fringing, pearl necklaces and ditsy florals, made chic against black separates, should go some way to tempting back the more-is-more brigade. Shoes were predominantly flat, strappy with traces of ballet core.
As for the less is more tribe? Who doesn’t love a great 70s-style blazer with a pussy bow blouse and tailored jeans, or a perfect pea coat?
So will Diana, famous as a saviour, rescue Gucci? While it has yet to set down a distinctive De Sarno handwriting, the Gucci London show coalesced many disparate ideas into a collection of great clothes that are destined to be copied on the high street.
More looks from the show...
