RED FLAIR

Sabato De Sarno, Gucci’s new creative director, wants people to fall in love again with this most Italian of brands. For help, he turned to iconic Italian singer Mina, an expert of both amore and italianità. Her 1978 hit “Ancora ancora ancora,” a dramatic ode to an on-again-off-again lover, became the hymn for De Sarno’s Gucci début in 2023. The song was also the roll-out track for the brand’s new it-color, Rosso Ancora, a deep oxblood that was unfurled across stores, billboards, kiosks, and public transport in cities worldwide. Ancora of course means “again,” and this summer De Sarno will be giving Rosso Ancora a lifestyle encore, co-curated by Michela Pelizzari, in a compact collection of furniture dubbed Design Ancora. Gucci has a long history of smaller home accessories, but De Sarno will be offering design with a capital D, reissuing five products by some of the most celebrated Italian designers and architects of the past five decades — Gae Aulenti, Mario Bellini, Piero Castiglioni, Tobia Scarpa, and Nanda Vigo — as well as proposing a new rug by Nicolò Castellini Baldissera, inspired by the patterns of his revered architect great-grandfather, Piero Portaluppi. De Sarno’s decision to revive design aspart of Gucci’s gene pool feels both personal and strategic: Italian designers have been global trailblazers since the 1950s, and the pieces De Sarno has selected are still produced by Italian companies. A perfect blend of “iconicity” and “Italianity,” Design Ancora was also transformed into an immersive exhibition conceived by Spanish architect Guillermo Santomà, which was on display at the Gucci store in Milan during Salone Del Mobile 2024. “Through Design Ancora, Gucci doesn’t simply celebrate old icons,” says co-curator Pelizzari. “It creates new ones.” The collection is sold as a special edition and is exclusively available through Gucci’s online store.