In the name of Gucci A memoir

Review by Booklist Review

To say the name Gucci is to instantly conjure images of globe-trotting sophistication and gold-dripping wealth. Yet this iconic fashion house has been beset with internecine power struggles, international scandals, incarceration, and murder. Perhaps the most unlikely witness to the rise and fall of this symbol of hedonistic elegance, Patricia Gucci was the illegitimate daughter (made ultimate heir) of Aldo Gucci and Bruna Palombo, a timid shopgirl who captured the married titan's attention and affection. Falling in love at a time when affairs were anathema to success and having a child out of wedlock was a criminal offense, Aldo and Bruna's devotion was the stuff of fairy tales. And, like most fairy tales, it contained a darker side: Bruna's guilt and fear of reprisal, Aldo's megalomaniacal quest for success, and Patricia's isolation and search for identity. With its themes of epic passion, repugnant greed, and nefarious treachery, Gucci's memoir is straight out of Shakespeare, tempered with an innocent love of the ordinary people behind the grandiose myths. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Fashionistas will flock to this tell-all, which will receive plenty of play across media outlets.--Haggas, Carol Copyright 2016 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

---

Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

This intimate memoir by the daughter of Aldo Gucci and his longtime mistress, Bruna, describes growing up in the shadow of the family at the center of the Gucci fashion empire. The memoir charts the love affair of the author's parents and depicts the glitzy lifestyle of a man at the center of the fashion industry in the 1960s. Fashion magnate Aldo, a bon vivant man-about-town in Rome, Milan, and Hollywood, is credited with turning his father's luggage business into a high-end international fashion house. The memoir culminates with Aldo's nephew and lawful sons wresting the business away from him, and his subsequent trial for tax evasion. The most intriguing character, however, is the author's mysterious, conservative mother, a former shop clerk who fell in love with her boss and was loyal to him-raising his (mostly hidden) daughter and keeping his secrets-until his death in 1990. She even tells her young daughter, "In truth, I was a better mother to him than I was to you." This book is particularly successful as a personal story about growing up with the weight of illegitimacy on one's young yet well-dressed shoulders. It is less successful in its idolization of Aldo Gucci, a man whom time-and his own brand, now more often associated with recent creative directors Alessandro Michele and Tom Ford-has mostly forgotten. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

---

Review by Library Journal Review

Aldo Gucci's daughter writes of the passion between her parents: the wealthy head of a luxury goods purveyor and his longtime companion and mistress, who began working as his secretary. Gucci conveys the pain-and pleasures-of her mother's and her shadowy existence, settles a few scores with her half siblings, and writes movingly of coming to terms with both her parents and herself.-LF © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

---

Review by Kirkus Book Review

The heiress to the Italian fashion house unfurls her combustible family history. "A reserved child who'd had to grow up fast," Gucci was born into an elite, high-profile familial legacy. As her candid memoir details, her father Aldo's relationship with her mother, Bruna, was shrouded in secrecy and controversy. The author describes the company's ascent to greatness by way of her grandfather, founder Guccio, and her father, who "transformed his father's small Florentine luggage company into a global phenomenon that came to epitomize Italian chic." Aldo's death in 1990 left Bruna mired in grief, and her relationship with Patricia slipped deeper into estrangement. Yet two decades later, saddled with two failed marriages, the author began writing as a cathartic attempt to both connect the missing pieces of her parents' complex romance and to afford Aldo his "rightful place in history." Referencing a cache of her father's love letters to her mother, the author explores the precarious evolution of their illicit courtship, from their budding attraction when Bruna was a teenage Gucci salesgirl in Rome to the author's hushed birth (Aldo was already married with children, and Italian law forbade adultery). Treating Bruna as his common-law wife, Aldo raised his daughter lovingly if sporadically, shuffling her between England and Italy. Gucci describes him differently at alternating points throughout the memoir. As a fashion figurehead, he was a "trailblazing businessman of extraordinary dynamism," yet as a father, he was the infrequently present "handsome daddy with the ready smile and distinctive cologne who flew in and out of our lives with a blast of movement and noise." As solemn as many of her memories are, Gucci imparts these emotions with impassioned, poetic prose that buffers much of the hollowness of her restless childhood. Once jailed for tax evasion, Aldo watched the business suffer through tragedy and further familial betrayal as his daughter struggled to emerge from a cloistered life in the shadows of a fashion empire. An absorbing, bittersweet tribute. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

---

One The years after my father died weren't easy for my mother and me. Our relationship had always been rocky but we were both consumed by our own problems and his absence only made it worse. Bereft of the man who'd become a father figure, friend, husband, and son all rolled into one, my mother was overcome by grief and fear. She felt rudderless without the force that had been driving us forward. Whenever I tried to comfort her, she pushed me away, and I became too busy to try again. My marriage was crumbling, I had a new baby, and it fell to me to deal with the lawyers for my father's estate. There was no time to grieve. Unable to guide my mother, I was powerless as she struggled to accept the loss that, for a while, rendered her completely incoherent.  Her helplessness effectively shut down all channels of communication between us at a time when I needed her most. For the next few years we hardly connected at all. By the time I was in my forties I was counting the cost of two failed marriages and the toll they had taken on my three daughters. For reasons I hadn't yet understood, I seemed to attract the wrong kind of man and suffered immensely as a result. True love--the kind my parents shared during their long and complex relationship--had eluded me. Thankfully, I had some wonderful friends, but they could only support me so much. Prayer and meditation helped, but I realized that part of the problem was that I didn't feel grounded. I had never met my grandparents and I barely knew my brothers. I had only really come to know my father properly in the last phase of his life, and my mother remained a mystery to me. The more I delved into my own psyche, I began to appreciate that my misguided choices seemed to stem from my fractured childhood and dysfunctional family relationships. In order to move forward, I needed to go back to my roots and reconcile with my past. Eventually, it occurred to me that it might help to write a book about my father. I wanted to chronicle our lives with him as we experienced it--as a record for my family. I hoped to give my children a unique and truthful memento, not one sensationalized by others. Most important, I believed that he deserved his rightful place in history, not only for his role in establishing Gucci but as a pioneer of the iconic "Made in Italy" label throughout the world. What I didn't expect was that my research would lead me back to my mother. After years of estrangement, I could finally begin to understand their unique bond and give her the credit she deserved. My epiphany began in 2009 when I visited her in Rome. After a lamentable lapse of six months interspersed only with twice-weekly telephone calls, I sat with her and began to talk. Hoping to learn from her own long journey of self-discovery, I spoke about my experiences of the previous few months, including my travels and visits to spiritual retreats. She understood that I was still trying to find myself. "I've met many interesting people and a few of them have made me realize just how many blanks there are in my childhood memories," I told her, treading softly. "In fact, there's just one big black hole. I appreciate that I never asked, but I know so little about you and Papa and your life when you were younger and I'd love to know more." I could tell from my mother's body language that she was uncomfortable with the direction I was going in and would rather not speak about such matters. Every time I'd tried in the past, she'd pushed me away, saying that she didn't remember or--more tellingly--that she didn't want to. Her habit of bottling things up, never explaining anything, and keeping me in the dark was a pattern that had been repeated my entire life, so I feared that nothing much would change. Sure enough, after looking askance at me she shrugged her shoulders and asked, "What good will it do after all this time?" "Well, I thought opening up might help you too," I replied. "I know that you've never felt understood." She looked at me for a moment in silence. When she stood abruptly and went to her bedroom I thought I'd gone too far and that our conversation was over. But something I said that day must have resonated, because she returned with a leather pouch bearing the distinctive Gucci insignia. Handing it to me, she said, "Your father wrote me many letters. I kept them all. Here, I want to give them to you." Until that moment in that sun-filled apartment, I had no idea that Papa had penned a single note to my mother. He lived his life at a gallop and I couldn't imagine when he'd have had time to write her so many lettere d'amore. Wisely, I held my tongue, unzipped the pouch, and pulled out a bundle of letters, some on blue airmail paper, some on hotel stationery, some typed or written in my father's distinctive hand, all of them in Italian. The treasured archive of their courtship years between 1958 and 1961 was interspersed with telegrams from overseas. Why had she kept these for over fifty years? Quickly flicking through them, my eyes settled on a sentence--"My treasure, my love, don't leave me! Do not destroy the very best part of my life . . . do not push me away; this feeling is not just infatuation but a vast and boundless love." I could hardly believe what I was reading. My mother watched me for a moment as I sifted through them and then she rose to make some tea. "They are such beautiful letters," she said softly from the doorway. "Your father had a wonderful way with words. It was one of the things that first attracted me to him."  "Will you read them with me?" I asked, but she raised her hand and shook her head. "I can't. I remember how they made me feel all those years ago. That is enough." My eyes filling with tears, I realized she had just handed me a priceless legacy. Two decades after his death, she'd opened a window to their secret life together--my first glimpse into what had been a mystery for so long. "But these are incredible, Mamma!" I exclaimed.  "Yes," she added. "It was a kind of fiaba [fairy tale]--but not necessarily one with a happy ending." Her gift marked the start of my quest to piece together the jigsaw of my parents' lives, and ultimately of my own. My father's words sparked a thousand questions, many of which she agreed to answer over the next few years. Subsequent research took me on an intriguing journey back to my Florentine and Roman origins, which has enlightened me on many levels. So much has been written about the "saga" of the House of Gucci, with far too much emphasis given to my father's fall from grace and the bitter family relationships that led to scandal, divorce, and even murder. So little has been said about what a great man he was or how much he loved my mother.  Through the power of his words, I discovered him as a passionate and sensitive person, in sharp contrast with his public reputation as the ruthless chairman who ruled with an iron fist. Mostly, I gained a whole new perspective on the unorthodox love story between my parents in the golden age of la dolce vita. This has been a deeply insightful experience for me after a somewhat scattered childhood. I have come to appreciate not only my father's trials and tribulations but also the sacrifices my mother made as a young woman destined to become the mistress and lifelong companion of an unsung hero of modern Italy. In the course of my pilgrimage, she has finally felt able to open up and show me the unseen Aldo Gucci--glimpses of whom I witnessed for myself only at the end of his life. "There was another side to him," she insists. "A side that only I knew. That was the real Aldo." And in revealing him to me, she has allowed me to see her through his eyes for the first time. Excerpted from In the Name of Gucci: A Memoir by Patricia Gucci All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

---