Guccio Gucci

Guccio Giovanbattista Giacinto Dario Maria Gucci (; 26 March 1881 – 2 January 1953) was an Italian businessman and fashion designer and founder of the fashion house Gucci.

Early life Guccio Gucci was born in Florence, Tuscany, on 26 March 1881. He was the son of Tuscan parents, Gabriello Gucci, a leather craftsman from San Miniato, and Elena Santini, from Lastra a Signa.

As a teenager, in 1899, Guccio Gucci worked at the Savoy Hotel in London.

Career In 1921, he founded the House of Gucci in Florence on Via della Vigna Nuova as a small family-owned leather shop. In 1938, Gucci expanded his business to a second location in Rome at the insistence of his son Aldo. His one-man business eventually turned into a family business when his sons joined the company. Aldo, the eldest son who joined in 1925, proved particularly innovative in developing new products, including the company's first pigskin bag.

Death and legacy Gucci died on 2 January 1953 in Milan.

Personal life Gucci and his wife, Aida Calvelli, married in 1901 and had six children, five sons and one daughter.

In his final years, he lived near Rusper, in West Sussex, England.

Arms

Guccio Gucci; his eldest biological son, Aldo Gucci; Aldo Gucci's sons, Giorgio Gucci, Paolo Gucci, and Roberto Gucci; and grandson Uberto Gucci claimed the right to use an inherited, ancestral coat of arms after the Kingdom of Italy, which was ruled by the House of Savoy, transitioned to the Italian Republic in 1946.

Guccio Gucci adapted, or incorporated, the Gucci coat-of-arms, as recorded in the Archives of Florence, into the Gucci company's knight logo, which was trademarked by the Gucci company on 4 February 1955.

The blazon recorded in the Florence Archives is as follows: "Azure, three red poles bordered argent (white); a chief or, loaded to the right (dexter) of a wheel of azure, and to the left (sinister) of a rose of red." ("D'azzurro, a tre pali di rosso bordati d'argento; e al capo d'oro caricato a destra di una ruota d'azzurro, e a sinistra di una rosa di rosso.")

Translation: "Family of San Miniato; Giacinto Gucci and his brothers were admitted to the nobility of San Miniato in 1763 (on that occasion it is declared that the family had come from Cremona in 1224); Giuseppe di Gaetano Gucci, on the other hand, was admitted to the nobility of Fiesole in 1839. Francesco di Benedetto Gucci obtained Florentine citizenship in 1601, for the Golden Lion banner; Giovanni Battista by Giovan Piero Gucci obtained it in 1634, in the Scala banner."

Court documents, records, and subsequent rulings indicate that, because the Gucci family trademarked the coat-of-arms in 1955, the trademark transferred with the sale of the Gucci company by Maurizio Gucci to Investcorp, and subsequent company owners, in 1993. However, Uberto Gucci (b. 1960), the son of Roberto Gucci, and the grandson of Aldo Gucci, claims that the Gucci family still has the right to use the ancestral Gucci coat-of-arms.