Since the beginning of his tenure as creative director of Gucci, Sabato De Sarno has used his role to forge a multidisciplinary approach, whereby his symbiotic vision for the Italian house encompasses not only fashion, but art, design, literature, publishing and architecture.
There was a series of Italian design classics by the likes of Mario Bellini and Tobia Scarpa reissued in De Sarno’s oxblood ‘Ancora red’ for Milan Design Week 2024; an art-filled flagship store on London’s Bond Street housed in a former gallery; ‘Gucci Prospettive’, an ongoing series of books curated by figures like Paola Antonelli and Stefano Collicelli Cagol; and a Cruise show that took place in the Herzog & de Meuron-designed tanks at Tate Modern (more recently, Gucci was principal sponsor for the ongoing ‘Electric Dreams: Art and Technology Before the Internet’ at the institution).
Gucci: ‘Endless Narratives’
Now, a new project helmed by the designer sees De Sarno take this vision into Gucci stores, inaugurating an installation-like series of windows titled ‘Endless Narratives’. Reflecting his broad cultural fascinations, the windows feature shelves of books, artefacts and objets d’art, some arranged to appear like an endless infinity mirror, akin to a surreal and futuristic library. Interspersed are pieces from De Sarno’s recent collections, including his riff on the house’s Jackie handbag.
‘A vision that intertwines objects, ideas, and stories into infinite possibilities,’ says the house of the windows, which are currently installed in London, Tokyo and Milan. ‘More than a display, it is a journey into a kaleidoscope of culture, where books, artefacts, and treasures converge across time, branching from past to present to future.’
‘Endless Narratives’ also features a collaboration with Italian visual artist Luca Pignatelli, a former architect whose work explores concepts of civilisation, memory and time through use of classical motifs and antiquity (his work is often described as a ‘theatre of memory’). Here, Pignatelli has provided 80 limited-edition artworks to be displayed, each using his favoured techniques of sugar lift and collage, ‘transforming ordinary materials into objects of profound meaning’.
‘The artist’s exploration of historical and architectural references aligns perfectly with the display’s focus on timelessness and evolution,’ says Gucci of De Sarno’s choice of collaborator. ‘Every object, like Pignatelli’s art, invites infinite interpretations.’
