Emilio Pucci opened his first store in Capri, in 1949, serving up kaleidoscopic printed dresses that by the ’60s had become signifiers of a jet-set lifestyle recognizable well beyond Italian vacation destinations. Massimo Giorgetti, the young founder of MSGM, one of Milan's recent success stories, took the wheel at the iconic house earlier this year after Peter Dundas’s departure. For his debut today, Giorgetti started at the seaside, which was the right instinct: As the birthplace of Pucci, it was a natural place for a new beginning.
Giorgetti uncovered some compelling pieces from the archives; a glance at his backstage mood board suggested he has an eye for the more obscure elements in the Pucci oeuvre. Unfortunately, this show was a bit of a muddle: too literal in its references (there were sea turtles and lobsters tangled up in a fishnet dress), too dependent on styling, and surprisingly low on prints. Though it seems a shame to ignore them, especially for a designer who built his business on irreverent mashups of color, texture, and pattern, prints aren't the only route to success at Pucci. The industry has seen enough revivals to know that it takes more than reverence for a house’s heritage to make things click for an incoming designer. But spelling out the founder's first name in script across the back of a slip dress, along the borders of a shift, and on the straps of flat sandals isn't the way to go either.
Hiring Giorgetti for the job indicated that the Pucci powers-that-be were after a radical change, targeting the street style and Instagram-obsessed younger crowd that's been his sweet spot at MSGM. That in and of itself isn’t a negative, and there are clearly larger opportunities at lower price points. But Giorgetti has some work to do to right this ship.
