Gucci revamped by recession

Gucci's CEO believes the worldwide recession provided the brand with the ''perfect opportunity'' to revamp vintage classics.

Patrizio Di Marco believes the recession was the "perfect opportunity" to revamp the Gucci brand.

The luxury label's chief executive - who heads up the company alongside creative director Frida Giannini - explained that, while in one way, the worldwide economic meltdown was "a disaster" for luxury fashion lines, it also offered a chance for the pair to rethink the brand.

He said: "In one sense, the recession was a complete disaster for luxury brands. Even the super wealthy stopped being compulsive shoppers for a while.

"But in another sense it was the perfect opportunity to rethink the way we did things."

One such thing that Frida - who worked at Fendi prior to her 2002 appointment at Gucci - chose to revamp was the brand's original Bamboo bag, which was originally designed in the 1940s.

She told Britain's The Times newspaper: "The original Bamboo bag was made from pigskin, but in the 1940s, pigskin was very rigid. I wanted to create something softer, to be more modern - but it had to be authentic, with the same skin, not with cow leather printed to look like pig.

"We also had to re-proportion it, because women like bags bigger these days. We made the leather strap shorter; added a chain strap."