Sabato De Sarno’s Last Chapter Before Exiting Gucci
Following the announcement that Sabato De Sarno has left the behemoth brand, Bazaar Arabia reflects on a recent interview with the former creative director – shortly before he presented what would become his last mainline collection for the maison
There’s a ghost in the Gucci archive.
On a tour of the space, a 15th-century palazzo located on the left bank of the Arno River in Florence, Italy, I’m told that the ghost is thought to be the house’s founder, Guccio Gucci. Strange noises have been reported emanating from unoccupied rooms in the building.
To be sure, this site has stories to tell. The former Gucci factory and workshop now contain primary artifacts from the house’s 103-year history, including Guccio Gucci’s Horsebit loafers, artist Vittorio Accornero’s Flora drawings, Tom Ford’s red velvet suit, and Alessandro Michele’s Dionysus bag. Taken together, they paint a picture of a globally renowned luxury brand.
Currently at the helm, tasked with writing the next chapter for Gucci, sits 41-year-old Sabato De Sarno, now one year into the daunting job. We meet in a high-ceilinged, wood-paneled room that looks like a library, only instead of rare books on the shelves, there are bags. Lining the walls in glass cases are some of the most famous and recognizable ones of all time: the Jackie, the Bamboo 1947, the Blondie. “Stupendo,”
Sabato says as his eyes dart around the room and he excitedly recalls the histories and points out the intricacies of some of his favorites. “It’s a magical place,” he says, “All these pieces represent a different moment of Gucci. It’s not just pieces of leather or clothes or a brand — it’s a story. And I want to continue to tell this story.”
Sabato is in his standard uniform of a boxy, logoless black T-shirt with black jeans and sneakers. “If you see me in a white T-shirt, it’s a really bad day,” he tells me. “I’ll wear white when I need something to make me feel brighter. I use clothes as a language. But most days, I wear total black because I’m a very positive person.”
We met just prior to Sabato unveiling his Spring 2025 collection in Milan at the art-and-design museum La Triennale, where he also staged his menswear show in June 2024. But if any last-minute details are weighing on him, he isn’t showing it. “In the last year and a half, many things have happened, most of them really beautiful, most of them the first time for me. It was a full year of first times,” he says. “But this is our second time, you know? I feel more relaxed.”
Gucci’s rich history over the past century-plus is punctuated by culture-shaping moments, imagery, and looks. Guccio Gucci’s initial business was luggage, and he started the company in 1921 as a purveyor of handcrafted leather trunks and bags. In the midcentury, Gucci came to signify a kind of international luxury, with the introduction of the Horsebit and the flora motif and high-profile fans like Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. By the 1990s, Gucci’s ready-to-wear designer Tom Ford helped transform it into one of the most influential forces in fashion, representing a bold, sensual glamour. More recently, Alessandro Michele’s brand of magpie maximalism captured the zeitgeist of a different era.
Over the course of the six collections Sabato has presented so far, he has sketched a new vision of Gucci built around strong, wearable, foundational pieces: the perfect jean; the exquisitely tailored coat; clothes done in sleek monochromes and soft, subtle patterns; accessories with unexpected details; silhouettes made for living and for movement.
Coming on the heels of Alessandro, Sabato’s version of Gucci can seem understated, almost restrained. But his approach is intuitive, a notion that has a strong hold on fashion right now. With people tiring of overcommercialised ideas, personal style is the fantasy, and that’s exactly the drum he is beating at Gucci.
Guccio Gucci was an ambitious storyteller. He came from humble beginnings, but he spun a narrative of a more regal, equestrian-loving Gucci family as he grew the business. An early iteration of the Gucci logo was a knight flanked by a rose and a wheel; it was nicked from a crest that belonged to a different, more noble Gucci family, but Guccio adopted it as his own. It’s a tale that Sabato is drawn to as he crafts his own chapter.
Sabato grew up in a close-knit family in Cicciano, town near Naples, and now resides in both Milan and Brussels. In person, he can be disarming and refreshingly unassuming – so much so that last spring, Gucci released a short documentary called Who Is Sabato De Sarno? narrated by actor Paul Mescal. Before his appointment at Gucci, Sabato spent two decades working behind the scenes at Prada, Dolce & Gabbana, and Valentino. The bluntly titled mini doc is part of an approach to storytelling – and to managing the scrutiny that comes with occupying a top job at a major luxury house – that is reflective of Sabato’s sensibilities as a designer: simple, pared down to an essence, clear.
“In one year – I think with hard work – there is a lot of me in the new Gucci,” Sabato says. “I think step by step, season by season, collection by collection. I love to build room by room. Every collection is a room, and right now have six rooms.
He has focused on and refined pragmatic details and fabrications, like durable soft leather on accessories and oversize cocoon tailoring in his coats. He has played with embellishments, but never in ways that feel heavy-handed or over-the-top. Crystal tank tops and dresses are styled with jeans; a beaded fringe dress that reads like a light slip is worn with ankle socks and Gucci Horsebit loafers.
The loafer has become a signature Sabato remix from the archive (he introduced a platform pair for his first collection that were an instant hit), as have his versions of the Jackie and Bamboo bags, which he has shrunken down, artfully adorned with crystals (to match the tanks), and finished in neon hues. There is also a particular attention to colour; Sabato introduced a deep oxblood called Rosso Ancora that has become a signifier of the De Sarno era. (The word ancora means “again” in Italian.)
“What the new Gucci is representing with Sabato is something a little bit cleaner and more minimal,” says Miley Cyrus, who wore a custom sequined Gucci dress to the Grammys this year. “I feel that sometimes, because I have so much to say and I have so much of my own personality, when clothes do too much of the talking, it doesn’t leave room for me to speak my piece,” she offers, emphasising that Sabato’s clothes give her that space. “I’m able to express myself without getting drowned in someone else’s creation, if that makes sense.
That, Sabato says, is one of his goals as a designer. “I don’t want to cover you with my things. We want to see you, he explains. “I want to see you wearing Gucci, not Gucci wearing you. I don’t want the clothes I make to be about me. I want them to be Gucci. When people choose my clothes, I want them to be able to wear them. Because to me, it’s important to have things that have life.”
Sabato’s ethos as a designer has also been expressed in the way he has built the world around his vision and in the people he has chosen to represent this era of Gucci. That has included getting model Daria Werbowy, fresh off a near-decade-long sabbatical, to front his first campaign, which was photographed by David Sims. Artistic director Ricardo Zanola, who works with Sabaro. says, “The first campaign with Daria encapsulated a bit of the ultimate message he aims to convey – this sense of intimacy and confidence in one’s own sensuality that is so emblematic of Gucci and its heritage.
Sabato sops up inspiration and visual codes from anywhere and everywhere. One scroll through his personal Instagram reveals a kaleidoscope of interests: a tome on Lucio Fontana; a photo of Jackie O. in the ’70s; paintings by George Condo at the Deste Foundation in Athens; bits of poetry; a carousel that starts off with a quote from the author and playwright Samuel Beckett, followed by a black-and-white photo of Beckett wearing a Gucci bag. (An image of Sabato’s sleek new iteration of that bag, the Gucci B, follows.)
His Resort 2025 collection, for example, featured a campaign starring Blondie singer Debbie Harry and photographed by Nan Goldin, an artist he admires. “Her aesthetic is something that has always touched me,” Sabato says. “The way she captures sensuality, sex, eclectic moods, and the way she shoots people in intimate moments – I love her process. And I wanted Debbie to be the star because of her and her music and her story. There is always more to it than just that fact that someone is famous.” He added his own touches to the Blonde bag, with new iterations including slightly boxier shapes and crisp colourways.
That collection tapped into a more emotional side, with ethereal pleated gowns and billowy blouses. And for Spring 2025, there were playful moments amid the reworked staples: slouchy jeans and trousers paired with white tank tops with green-and-red-striped grosgrain-ribbon trim and accessorised with oversize sunglasses and headscarves. There were also tulip-shaped miniskirt suits with Lucite heels – algorithmically grabby looks that felt designed with Instagram and TikTok in mind.
In addition to the shows at La Triennale, Sabato presented his Resort 2025 collection at London’s Tate Modern art gallery. He says he does some of his best thinking while wandering through museums – and not just because of the art. “When I’m traveling, the first thing that I do is look for an exhibition in the museum,” he says. “I always find something that I can learn and it’s the perfect match of new things and old things together. I love that everyone In museum is the same. There are no layers between people. You can see important art but also young kids’ art together. I love this idea of sharing things with everyone and not select people.
Sabato always reserves a section in the front row of his shows for his nearest and dearest. A photo of him kissing his mum during his bow for the Resort 2025 show went viral among fashion diehards. Followers and fans have circulated the clips of him dancing backstage. But pressure, whether imagined or real, is a very tangible thing in fashion today.
These days, designers at global luxury brands aren’t afforded much time to establish themselves or achieve commercial success – a reality of the fashion business. But Sabato remains intent on trying to keep himself in a place where he feels inspired. “Creativity is a real, personal thing,” he says. “It’s about the way that I choose things, about my sensibility. It’s about my experiences. It’s also about the moment that I live,” he explains. “In these big moments, especially in my first show for Gucci, I was just trying to change the mood because the pressure is a lot. It’s part of the job, but if I can make those moments better by dancing and singing, why not?”
Pausing to scan the archives around us, Sabato says he has been trying to persuade the company to open the building up to the public because he wants people – especially young people who are interested in fashion – to have the same experience he does when he visits.
I tell Sabato about the theory that was relayed to me on the way in, that the ghost of Guccio Gucci is haunting the archive. “Oh really?” he says, raising his eyebrows and smiling. “Maybe he’s going to come in and interrupt us if I say something he doesn’t like,” Sabato offers with a gentle laugh. “Everything in the archive says something different; it’s a story,” the designer explains. “And I hope there’s part of my story here too.”
Photograpghy by Brett Lloyd. Styling by Riccardo Maria Chiacchio