Story arc
Guccio Gucci
As a teenager in the early 1900s, Guccio Gucci was a lift boy at the Savoy Hotel in London. Inspired by the elegant upperclass guests, he returned to Florence and started making travel bags and accessories. He founded the House of Gucci in Florence in 1921[1] as a small family-owned leather saddlery shop. He began selling leather bags to horsemen in the 1920s. As a young man, he rapidly built a reputation for quality, hiring the best craftsmen he could find to work in his atelier.[1] In 1938, Gucci expanded his business to Rome. Soon his one-man business turned into a family business, when his sons Aldo, Vasco, Ugo and Rodolfo joined the company.
Aldo Gucci
From the age of 20, Aldo began work full-time at Gucci. He went on to open the first shop outside his native city in Rome in 1938[2] and soon after took over the reins of the company upon his father’s death in 1953. Gucci became an overnight status symbol when the bamboo handbag was featured on Ingrid Bergman’s arm in Roberto Rossellini’s 1954 film “Viaggio in Italia”. The GG insignia became an instant favorite of Hollywood celebrities and European royalty. When Aldo opened in New York in 1953, he planted the “Made in Italy” flag on American soil for the first time. President John F Kennedy heralded him as the first Italian Ambassador to fashion[3] and he was awarded an honorary degree by the City University of New York in recognition of his philanthropic activity, described as the Michelangelo of Merchandising.[4] He went on to open shops in Chicago, Palm Beach and Beverly Hills, before expanding to Tokyo, Hong Kong and in cities around the world through a global franchising network. For over thirty years he was dedicated to the expansion of Gucci, developing the company into a vertically integrated business with its own tanneries, manufacturing and retail premises. In 1986 he was sentenced to one year and one day in prison for tax evasion in New York. He was 81.[5] He did his time at the Federal Prison Camp at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. In 1987, after 66 years as a family-owned business, Gucci was sold to Investcorp.[6]
