Redefining the narrative about the story of Paolo Gucci The designer's daughter, Patrizia Gucci, has clarified the story about her father

DISCLAIMER: L'articolo originale pubblicato su nssmagazine lo scorso 17/12/2021 è stato aggiornato alla luce della testimonianza fornitaci da Patrizia Gucci, figlia di Paolo, che ha voluto illuminare alcuni retroscena sulle vicende della vita del proprio padre.

On December 10, 1995, the pages of La Repubblica read: «Paolo Gucci, King of Handbags, has died in London». A death that put an end to a very complicated human and professional story that had, at its center, a man with the dream of becoming a designer. Both in the story that led to the murder of Maurizio Gucci and in his professional affairs, Paolo Gucci's life was marked by mystification by the media. A narrative that is still unclear today but that his daughter, Patrizia Gucci, helped us to reconstruct: his many conflicts with the family were animous discussions «because he wanted to be recognized as a designer, and the others didn't want to». In terms of relationships, even Wikipedia is wrong to list his marriages: Patrizia Gucci asserts that Paolo's only wife was Yvonne Gucci Moschetto, while a series of original documents kept by her prove that the second marriage with Jenny Garwood was declared null and void in '93 in New York. Among other things, Paolo would have been in the company of his wife Yvonne in Italy a week before his death in London. Even the story of his 119 horses, found in a state of severe malnutrition by the New York police in November of '93 and reported by Repubblica results «invented completely to damage him and then sent to the newspapers. The purpose was to sell the Arabian horses, of great value». And even the blitz in March 1986, when, to quote Repubblica, «a blitz of lawyers, bailiffs and even a patent technician of a Turin company [...] has concluded surprisingly the Roman adventure of Paolo Gucci [...] who presented yesterday his new collection», has been deemed fake by the daughter of the designer who instead said: «There were no copyright issues, it was just that they didn't want him to do his line, but it was a very slow decision that came over time».

It is likely that Paolo Gucci's pieces will never reach the grail status of historical items such as those of Raf Simons or Rick Owens, and it is also likely that the attention they are arousing now will end a few months after the release of the film – nevertheless, those same objects remain a unique testimony of the times,  as well as the life of a historical figure who fought all his life to be recognized against people he loved and who did everything not to recognize his independence - and whose memory is being rehabilitated only now, more than ten years later, despite his many attempts to silence her forever.