Leather is not a recent invention. For those who are curious, there is evidence of leather-making from prehistoric times, which makes because it wouldn’t have been a huge cognitive jump for our ancestors to realize that animal hides could be used as protective coverings. However, these animal hides had serious issues. For example, they would turn stiff when exposed to cold temperatures. Likewise, they would rot when exposed to hot temperatures. As such, it seems safe to say that our ancestors put a fair amount of effort into overcoming these issues. Eventually, interested individuals came up with a way to turn animal hides into what we would recognize as leather used to create high-end luxury items. This wasn’t a pleasant process, seeing as how it involved pounding the animal hides in animal fats as well as animal brains before salting them and smoking them. However, the result was nonetheless leather. In time, interested individuals came up with more and more sophisticated ways to turn animal hides into leather, with an excellent example being the introduction of chemical tannage towards the end of the 19th century. Regardless, while leather has seen a wide range of uses for a wide range of people, it should come as no surprise to learn that there has been some leather products that are much more luxurious in nature than others. Sometimes, this was because the leather came from a rarer source. Other times, this was because the leather had been worked with finer techniques and technologies. Whatever the case, the interest in these more luxurious leather products has risen in the modern era, which in turn, means that there has been a corresponding boost to the suppliers who provide them.
Gucci founder Guccio Gucci can’t claim to have come from such a background. The providers of prestigious goods tend to have some prestige in their own right, but Gucci was born to an Italian leathermaker of much humbler circumstances. Still, this meant that he had some relevant expertise and experience even before he started up his own business. As for the rest, Gucci became a bellhop at a high-end London hotel where he took an interest in the tastes of its high-end clientele. Later, he spent some time working at the Compagnie des Wagons-Lits, which specialized and continues to specialize in upscale travel. Thanks to this, Gucci was very familiar with his intended clientele when he started up a shop selling imported leather luggage in his native Florence. Soon enough, he was making his own as well.
How Has Gucci Changed Over Time?
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Gucci has seen some significant changes since those humble beginnings. For instance, it started up in 1921, meaning that it experienced World War 2 as well as the lead-up to World War 2 from the Italian perspective. Thanks to this, Gucci has made goods using materials other than leather in this period, which was necessitated by material shortages. Similarly, it was involved with the production of leather boots for Italian soldiers in said conflict.
In any case, Gucci survived the war. After which, it was able to spread its business to the United States, which was followed by it spreading its business to Asia as well as the Middle East. Something in which it has proven to be so successful that it has become near-synonymous with luxury. Having said that, not everything has been smooth sailing for Gucci, as shown by how it became embroiled in family disputes in the late 1960s, which would continue to various extent until the end of the family’s involvement upon being bought out in the early 1990s. For a time, Gucci actually engaged in the mass production of its luxury leather goods, which meant more money coming in at the cost of a steady erosion in its brand value. After all, exclusiveness is the cornerstone of the market for luxury goods. There have been other disputes between other parties in the time since, but in spite of those, Gucci is very much a household name in the present time.
What Is the Gucci Logo?
There are some businesses that change their logo on a regular basis. This makes it more difficult for interested individuals to recognize them, but in exchange, they can keep up with the times. However, there are also businesses that go for the opposite approach in the sense that they go for a sense of timelessness, thus resulting in the same logo over time. Gucci is very much an example of the second kind of business. For a long time, the Gucci logo was the Gucci name in very rounded capital letters. Something that should be very familiar to those who pay attention to the brand, seeing as how it is still in use in the present time. However, this changed in 1933, which is notable because that was when Gucci’s son Aldo joined the business. Said individual was the one who introduced the now famous Gucci logo of the two capital Gs facing inwards in an interlocked manner, which has seen decades and decades of continuing use so far and can expect to see even more in the times to come.
There are some who have speculated about the Gucci logo having been inspired to some extent by the Bauhaus movement. For those who are curious, this was a German school involved with not just the fine arts but also the crafts, which made sense because it was focused on harmonizing mass production with an individual’s sense of artistry. Related to this, it was also very interested in combining beauty with everyday function, which was an important consideration in the late 19 century as well as the early 20th century. Certainly, the Gucci logo is relatively minimalist in appearance. Besides this, the Gucci logo seems designed to evoke a sense of timelessness. After all, its two Gs are interlocked with one another, meaning that one flows into the other without interruption. On top of this, the letters are facing one another rather than in the same direction, with the result that one can make the argument that it has neither a real beginning nor a real end. Something that makes it an excellent representative of the kind of timeless elegance that the brand is supposed to embody.
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