Since when is affordable a bad word?Photo: Courtesy of Gucci
Gucci posted its second-quarter earnings at the end of July, boasting profit increases of 4.5 percent. It sounds like good news, sure enough. But leave it to fashion to get all Mean Girl–y. Recent Internet and business chatter has questioned Gucci’s powerhouse status, saying the brand isn’t what it once was. Their words, not ours: “The return of profit momentum doesn’t necessarily mean a revival in the label’s cachet,” Sara Gay Forden wrote for Bloomberg News. What’s the problem? Fashion elitists say coming out with cheaper items, like a $620 bag covered in GG print, is ruining Gucci’s prestige identity. It’s a Catch-22 — on one hand, cheaper items don’t match with the brand’s identity and aspirational appeal. Yet on the other, it makes them affordable and attainable so people can actually buy them. Really, did Gucci do such a bad thing by making a few of their bags less expensive? Is it so awful that people may actually be able to afford the real Gucci totes, and not just the Canal Street fakes? Let’s not forget the headline here, in the midst of These Economic Times: Gucci’s sales increased. Maybe these catty naysayers are just a little jealous? —Sharon Clott
Gucci’s Owner Posts Fashionably Late Sales Increase [Business Week]
Where Is Gucci’s Cachet? [Fashion United]
