How Gucci Got Its Smart-Sexy Back

In the post–Tom Ford days, Gucci desperately needed to find itself. The brand name had become synonymous with Ford himself, and in his absence the company wanted to move forward—or in this case, return to its roots. While the media mourned the fashion label’s future, Gucci began to reinvent itself with the help of a small boutique agency in Minneapolis.

Tait Subler is the eight-person brainchild of Bruce Tait and Dodie Subler, two Fallon executives who started an offshoot called Fallon Brand Consulting in 2000 and bought themselves out in 2006. Now independent, the company focuses on brand strategy, often working under the radar with major clients all over the world, including Best Buy, Nike, Time magazine, and Donna Karan.

“We’re not doing the ad, we’re not doing the logo. We’re really trying to create a theme,” Tait says. “The bottom line is, What happens to that company after we leave them?”

When Tait Subler stepped onto the scene with Gucci in 2004, sales had already peaked and were losing steam. The image had become “jet setter-sexy,” Tait says. The strategists saw the need to create a brand theme for everyone to rally around. What could customers get from Gucci that they couldn’t from Louis Vuitton, Chanel, or Dolce and Gabbana? So, Tait Subler criss-crossed Milan, Tokyo, and New York, interviewing company designers, executives, and style-savvy shoppers to find out.

“What we discovered was really not where Tom Ford had been at all,” Tait says. “It wasn’t just about sexiness, it was impacting sensual power.” It was clear that the Gucci woman wanted to be remembered for making an impact on the world, “not just for her cleavage.”

The Gucci image had been about the “Paris Hilton–style party girl jetsetter, who would drink Champagne by the pool.” In reality, the strategists found that “the Gucci woman was flying everywhere too, but going to a meeting and making an impact on the world.”

As in all cases, the “brand theme” remains confidential, but Tait gave us a few key words that represent the kind of woman the product is aimed at, such as “assertive, powerful, charisma, dynamic, and self-assured.”

“If it’s raining in New York and two women are going for a cab, the Gucci woman gets it,” says Tait.

Thankfully, Gucci’s new creative director, Frida Giannini, was on board with the theme and designing with inspiration from Gucci archives. Without the name power of Ford, she wanted to make Gucci about Gucci again, Tait says—revitalizing old icons such as the red-and-green webbing, the flora scarf, bamboo-handled handbags, and the snake.

These symbols spoke instantly to what Tait Subler pointed out as the “brand cues” for fashion insiders—the ones way past the blatant logos like the interlocked Gs. Tait says he knew she “got it” when she was quoted in Vogue in 2005 saying: “Sexy is a word that is a typical theme of Gucci, but I can’t just think of a party girl. I want to understand an intelligent glamour . . . things a woman can wear with sensuality, not just to show off her tits.”