This past week on Wednesday, March 9th SCAD Museum showed a private screening of the infamous Hollywood adaptation, Ridley Scott’s House of Gucci. Following it, students and guests had the pleasure of attending a private Q+A with the one and only Domenico De Sole. De Sole was generous enough to share his successful experience in the business side of the Fashion Industry and gave advice to aspiring students.
Born in Italy, Domenico De Sole found himself back in his motherland in a meeting with the former leaders, Rudolfo & Aldo Gucci, of the legendary luxury brand The House of Gucci. He comically lands himself in a life-changing position with the group. He was initially in Italy for an internship-like opportunity when he found himself in charge of resolving a family feud between the brothers.
De Sole explained, “As I was leaving someone grabbed me, it was Rudolfo Gucci. He asked me what I was doing and I said I was going home. He said “no no no no you are going to dinner with me,” so I said okay. He then said I was a genius and I would from now on be his lawyer”.
Following the private screening of “The House of Gucci,” Domenico De Sole was kind enough to join the SCAD community by participating in a Q+A session.
When asked if De Sole had been consulted about the movie, he simply said “no.”
When asked where reality ends and fiction begins, he replied, “When you take a story over 15-20 years and put it into a movie of 2 hours, you are forced to take shortcuts, and that’s when reality changes”. A part of the story was left out: “An investor had bought out Maurizio before the take-off of the fashion show that would help save the company. There was an interim period that I needed to find who would become the creative director, and I found Tom Ford.”. He later named Tom the creative director of the company, and the company would later see success on a more pivotal scale. He explained, “the first beginning was the men’s fashion show.” Which then was followed by the women’s show that drove Gucci toward success.
Domenico De Sole, throughout the interview, touched on his advice and the most important traits he used to gain success in the business industry. “From the business side, what are the key points you focused on and started to see success?” De Sole replied, “I really believe that business is obviously big in strategy, but when I started my career, I saw everyone had a strategy, but successful companies have one thing in common. Execute, execute, and execute well. And so the key is being a really creative person, having a good team with talent, and execution”.
When asked, “For creative designers and us, creatives, what is your best advice and what is a quality we should all have to stand out in the industry.”
De Sole replied, “The best advice is to be yourself, obviously. It is the part of creative that can not be taught. If you want to start a creative career, it is very important to work for a larger company because it will teach you a lot about success. For example, in a fashion show everything is creative, but a show is really divided into two parts. One the pre-collection, it’s not just creative but is basically broken down into merchandising branch. The merchandising part we try to understand what is necessary for there to be success in the company. Then the second part, which is the fashion show, it can change two seconds before the show begins. It is a totally different ballgame. The biggest part of a collection though is the merchandising aspect, and that is why I suggest working for a bigger company so you can learn about how it works”.
Words by Roxana Abtin.
Graphic by Danna Macias.