Gucci Won’t Be Adopting The “See Now, Buy Now” Model

​Creative Director Alessandro Michele and CEO Marco Bizzarri give their reasons

Although Gucci will be unifying menswear and womenswear collections on the same catwalk in 2017, don’t expect the brand to hop on the “see now, buy now” bandwagon as well. Creative Director Alessandro Michele and CEO Marco Bizzarri spoke to WWD about changing the fashion calendar, and knowing where to stop.

Transitioning to a “see now, buy now” schedule can only appeal to a limited amount of customers, the duo noted.  “Has anyone actually asked the customer if they want to have something available directly after the show? You hear that three bags are going to be released tomorrow in five shops, so you produce 15 bags. How many customers are you going to satisfy with that? Fifteen!” Bizzarri said, suggesting that the conversation of the fashion calendar needs to “go in a completely opposite direction with what is being talked about” now.

To the Gucci CEO and president, there’s a lot more to the brand than the fashion show itself. “From a branding standpoint, the show represents only a fraction of our business, and the impact you actually have on the consumer is super, super tiny,” he said. Other features like the pre-collections are equally important, he told WWD.  “So let us use the show to tell a story, and then if we need to do something to be closer to the consumer, let’s make sure that the shops today are no longer these mausoleums where you are afraid to enter.”

As for Michele, he aims to retain the significance of the fashion show, which he calls “the moment when you can give soul” to clothes. He added, “Fashion is about the dream and without the dream, fashion doesn’t exist anymore. So I believe more and more in the fashion show, and I think that fashion needs to be more fashionable than ever before.”

Via Harper’s Bazaar US