Earlier this year, Sabato De Sarno, who was appointed creative director of Gucci in 2023, initiated his first furniture collection for the Florentine house: five 20th-century Italian design classics, remade in ‘Ancora’ red, the rich, oxblood hue which appeared as part of his debut runway collection and has become a symbol of his tenure so far. They included pieces by Nanda Vigo, Gae Aulenti, Piero Castiglioni, Mario Bellini, Tobia Scarpa and Piero Portaluppi, spanning sofas, rugs and a chest of drawers.
‘Design objects have always been a source of inspiration for me, especially when it comes to icons,’ De Sarno told Wallpaper* at the time. ‘I have discovered them, observed them, collected them. I have explored their stories.’
Gucci reissues an Enzo Mari design classic
This past week in Milan, De Sarno added to his roster of ‘Ancora’ red reissues the ‘Timor’ perpetual calendar by Italian designer Enzo Mari, designed in 1967 for Danese, which served as the invitation to Gucci’s S/S 2025 womenswear runway show on Friday afternoon (20 September 2024). Delivered to guests in an ‘Ancora’ red box, the unique invitation also featured a Gucci motif on its body (a miniature cardboard invitation inside saved guests having to transport the calendar to the venue).
De Sarno chose the object – a curving plastic design, out of which the days, weeks and months of the year fan outwards – to reflect the collection’s starting point, which was about capturing ‘a precise moment in time... a moment to seize and live to the fullest’. ‘It’s the moment the sun dives into the sea at the end of a day,’ he continued. ‘It’s the moment we find ourselves. This collection is a tribute to those moments, and an invitation to stop, seek your own moment.’
Held at the Triennale Milano museum, the city’s temple to design – where a recent Enzo Mari retrospective curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist took place – the show’s runway was evocative of a setting sun, comprising a series of rooms which moved from yellow to orange to ‘Ancora’ red. Meanwhile the collection itself captured what De Sarno called a ‘casual grandeur’, instilling everyday garments with joyful moments of craft, colour and embellishment – from smatterings of crystals to beaded tassels and lace.
Read our review of the show, and discover more from Milan Fashion Week S/S 2025, here.
