Bal Harbour

P H OTO S CO U R T E S Y O F G U CC I At the start of last year, it was announced that the designer Sabato De Sarno was hired to be the label's latest creative director. His appoint- ment came in the wake of an exiting Alessandro Michele, who held the role for some seven years. Michele not only disrupted Gucci's legacy, but the entire industr y 's habits; he operated in a novel headspace of color ful whimsy and Pop curiosit y. His Gucci was esoteric, and any thing but subtle. De Sarno, in his t wo Ready-to-wear collections thus far (women's Spring/Summer 2024 and men's Fall/ Winter 2024), has shifted course. There is a streamlined confidence in what he has put on the runway so far–for example, long-flowing neck ties for men, mini-shor ts for women–that harkens back to former Creative Director Tom Ford's era of emboldened sensuality, from 1994 to 2004. There's a touch of the 1980s apparent in outsize jackets. And De Sarno features the mid-aughts supermodel Daria Werbowy in a new jewelry campaign at Los Angeles's world-recognized Chateau Marmont hotel, resulting in deeply pleasing visuals that entice through their sun-kissed, Hollywood Gothic famil- iarity. The point: De Sarno is not reinventing the wheel. It is not the time to do so. Yet De Sarno has keyed into the zeitgeist for things that are somehow both discreet and look-at-me; there is an omnipresent sense in designer fashion that the mood has needed to be scaled back, but that the result- ing impression should be no less noticeable. It's an interesting and somewhat contradictory line to toe; Michele intentionally overstepped it, and Gucci is never going to be quietly lux- urious. Its bread and butter is not to cater to "stealth wealth." De Sarno is finding his footing somewhere in the middle. One example: A men's knit nav y-blue sweater, understated on the exterior, and yet embel- lished with a wide boat collar that spills open to reveal hundreds of diamond-white crystals on the "inside." It's at once very regular and yet very irregular. "I want to make things to use and wear, and not just things for shows or red carpets or editorials," De Sarno told the New York Times in a profile in January. It is an admirable if formidable challenge. Much noise has been made about fashion's dissolution of creativit y, with many collections having to weigh dollars over design. It seems that De Sarno is working on that, and in his freshman and sophomore outings, there are plenty of things that are wearable but also just a lit tle bit unusual, which results in a nice friction and a desirable alchemy. Both qualities make the viewer think okay, this is something unique. Something I can only get here, with a perspective behind it. Other examples include leather gloves styled to be worn in the same color as leather satchel bags; tall platform Yet De Yet De Yet Sarno has keyed into the zeitgeist for zeitgeist for zeitgeist things both discreet and look-at-me; and look-at-me; and there is an omnipresent fashion that the mood has needed to be scaled back, TIMES HAVE CHANGED OVER AT THE HOUSE OF GUCCI. 204 BAL HARBOUR

• Cover