When It Comes to Labeling, New Store Says It All: Gucci

Hey, like, gooched to the max, you know? I mean, like, gag me!

--Overheard outside the new Gucci store in Costa Mesa earlier this week.

“ ‘Gooched to the max?’ I love it,� said Carlo Armenise, manager of the store, which celebrated its grand opening at South Coast Plaza Tuesday night. “Why not? The name is universally recognized. It’s a standard of quality, a trademark for excellence. If we put our name on a coffee mug, it’s a Gucci coffee mug, it’s a good product and people know that.�

But Armenise admits there’s a thin line between name recognition and name saturation.

“Pierre Cardin was going out for a long time and putting Pierre Cardin on everything you can think of,� he said. “We haven’t done that. Well, OK, we had a Gucci car, we have Gucci coffee mugs . . . but leather goods are still number one. Handbags and wallets--that’s what we’re known for.

“The rest is incidental.�

Incidental then, and available at the South Coast Plaza store, are Gucci playing cards, Gucci tennis shoes and tennis socks, Gucci ashtrays, Gucci clocks, Gucci cigarette holders, paperweights, coasters, lamps, glasses, pens, sunglasses and, of course, Gucci watches.

Such items as Gucci toilet paper and the omnipresent Gucci sweat shirts are not manufactured by Gucci, according to Domenico DeSole, the new president of Gucci Shops Inc., a subsidiary of Guccio Gucci SPA of Florence.

“These things, there’s nothing we can do about it,� said DeSole with a sigh. “We do our best to contain the problem, but there is a limit. . . . “

- “Overpriced junk designer stuff. Like, only $100 for a little purse?�-- Also overheard outside Gucci.

In fact, prices can range from $5 for a cotton Gucci wristband to a $35 chrome-plated horse head bottle opener to a New Guinea crocodile valise with gold-plated hardware for $14,000, and double that figure for certain necklaces.

- “I think people just buy them for the little G’s . . . . “

True, according to Armenise, who said the double G logo has proved of some importance to sales.

“A certain segment of the population demands that Gucci be on it some way,� he explained. “Some people want it even bigger. They come into the store and they say, ‘Well, now, where’s the Gucci on this?’ And if it doesn’t say Gucci, they don’t want it.

“Others come into the store, and they say, ‘I don’t want Gucci on it. I’ll only buy it if it doesn’t say Gucci anywhere.

“Some want to be associated with that quality, the others understand it already. We get both types all the time.�

DeSole eyed a scarf with the word GUCCI emblazoned at one end.

“I’m not that crazy about it,� he admitted.

- “Everybody buys it. It’s so common, so ordinary

“Gucci has become a statement in society, one that’s endured,� said Armenise. “For a long time, we maintained a carriage trade business that was a little higher priced. Only a certain few people could afford to buy.

“Now we’re a little more mass-merchandised. Now many, many people are buying.�

John Cashion of Newport Beach has always bought--and treasured--Gucci; an incident at his 40th birthday celebration illustrated just how much his Gucci goods mean to him.

“My wife threw a surprise party down at a friend’s home,� Cashion recalled. “My friend had just purchased a new boat, so we went down on the dock to look at it.

“As we were walking back up, I noticed the ramp sounded funny. I stamped my foot, a board cut loose, and my friend and I went down in the water. When I got out of the water, I didn’t think about my watch or anything else. I just said, ‘Oh, no, my Gucci loafers!’

“I always have two or three pair in the closet. They’re well made, and, sure, there’s a certain snob appeal . . . “

Guccio Gucci opened his first saddlery shop in Florence 81 years ago. His Son, Aldo Gucci, opened a shop in Rome 46 years ago. There are now three Gucci stores in Southern California; the original is located on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, the second opened in Palm Springs Nov. 14.

The Costa Mesa boutique was the first project of DeSole, who became president of Gucci Shops Inc. a year and a half ago when the now 37-year-old Maurizio Gucci, Guccio’s grand nephew, took over as chairman of the board; Aldo Gucci is now chairman emeritus.

Armenise, who has worked at the Beverly Hills and Palm Beach Gucci locations, feels the corporate management shake-up has been a real step forward.

“I’d say it’s definitely been the most interesting thing that’s happened in my nine-year career with the company,� he said. “The company has taken on a new attitude. We’re much more progressive, much more organized, much more professional, much more aware--in the American marketplace especially.

“Before, the attitude was, ‘We’re Gucci. Let the marketplace conform to who we are.’ Now it’s, ‘We’re Gucci. We’ll do what we do best, we’ll try to find our flaws and weaknesses, we’ll improve. We’ll try to conform to the marketplace.’

“We want to still be making money in the year 2001. You don’t do that on a name every year.

“Even on the name Gucci.�