Ask Imran Anything: Vanity Metrics, Creativity and Commerce, Gucci’s Future

Imran Amed (0:05)

Hi, this is Imran Ahmed, founder and CEO of The Business of Fashion. Welcome to the BOF Podcast. It's Friday, October 16th. This week by popular demand, we are back for the third installment of Ask Me Anything, where listeners from around the world send in their most pressing questions about what is happening in the fashion business today. This time, the conversation starts with what happened in the latest round of fashion shows, specifically what's going on at Gucci, whether metrics like earned media value are worth anything at all, how brands can strike the right balance between creativity and commerce, and where human judgment still remains integral, even as AI becomes part of our everyday work. Thank you to everyone who sent in your questions. Here's Ask Me Anything on the BOF Podcast.

Hello and welcome to Ask Me Anything. I'm Imran Amed, founder and CEO of The Business of Fashion.

We have received more than 75 questions this time. Obviously, we could not get to them all, but what we've tried to do is organize them together by theme and get to as many of them as we can. So without further ado, here's Ask Me Anything.

SPEAKER_2 (1:21)

My question is, at this point, where do you see the future vision of Gucci? There's such a papery of things they're doing, from the Times Square show in New York to this collection now, to stories, to what they're selling, to handbags, to bringing back previous models.

I think that what they're doing is very confusing, honestly.

I'm not sure, as a guest, that I understand what their vision is, and why should I be wearing Gucci or purchasing Gucci? Is it quality? Is it fashion? Is it back-to-town for days? It's just very confusing. Maybe it's me, this is the reason I'm asking. Maybe you have a vision that is more clear to understand as an outside customer of Gucci at this point.

Imran Amed (2:15)

The future of Gucci, I think that's a topic on a lot of people's minds working in luxury fashion at the moment, is one of the most frequently asked questions, at least that I get, almost on a daily basis. There were at least four of you who asked this question. So clearly we had to start this episode with the future of Gucci.

It's not an easy question to answer, if I'm honest. I'll start by saying, why is this such an important question?

For the caring group, Gucci represents a disproportionate share of both revenue and profit. If Gucci is not working, then caring is not working. In recent years, Gucci has not been working. Sales have continued to contract even up until the most recent quarters. And even after, Demna had been appointed as a creative director of the brand, and some of his collections began to appear in the store. So the question is, really, are we seeing any real momentum to get Gucci back on track and what does that look like?

I thought the most recent collection in Milan last month was probably the sharpest, clearest, most focused expression of Gucci that we've seen from Demna thus far, in part because we'd seen so many different versions of Gucci, from La Familia in the theater to La Primavera, which was that super hard show to the Gucci core show, which took place in New York City. This most recent show, The Store, just clicked. He showed the men's looks first, lots of preppy looks, lots of bourgeois looks, easy to understand, none of the skin-tight body-con stuff that we saw in that Primavera show. Then he showed the women's looks second, and we saw those looks on people like Amanda Harlech, and Sabine Getty, and other women of stature. And all of that was like kind of an understandable vision for Gucci. I guess the remaining question I have is, is it enough in this very challenging market where the luxury industry is not growing, customers are even more discerning, even more demanding about value and design innovation and kind of an emotional connection they want from the fashion products they engage with. That I have yet to feel that from Demna's collections. So let's see. But it is a big strategic question for Luca de Mayo and all of the executives at Karen and I know they're thinking about it every single day.

Kaylin (5:22)

Hi Imran, I'm Kaylin and I'm a fashion student based in London.

My question for you on the podcast was, how do you explain the gap between brand management and increasingly pushing, forcing, or restraining design towards commercial performance? Thank you.

Imran Amed (5:39)

Finding the right balance between the creative side of fashion, the commercial side of fashion, that is the holy grail. When it clicks, when it works, it can feel a little like alchemy or magic.