Written by Staff Writer
“House of Gucci” celebrates 65 years of Gucci’s story by looking at the key collaborators at the fashion house over the last six decades, and goes behind the scenes at their studios to see how the three women behind Gucci brought their artistic vision to life. The series premieres on June 8 at 9 p.m. ET on CNN.
Lindsay Tomlinson, Newsweek’s feature writer, joined host Richard Quest to talk about how fans can know more about Gucci without necessarily seeing it.
“I think anyone can learn a lot more about Gucci by watching this documentary,” Tomlinson said. “You see people who did not just live there. You meet some of them that are still there today.”
Tomlinson is still very familiar with the brand from her days as an editor at Forbes.
“That is one of the reasons why I have been really fortunate to be part of a project of this caliber that is as obsessed with the brand’s history as the program is,” she said.
CNN’s program was executive produced by Andrea Nix Fine (CBS News, HBO’s “Grease Live”), Clay Tweel (Cineflix’s “Black Hawk Down” and “Secrets of the Vatican”) and Naomi DeWolf Shaw (HBO’s “The Case Against 8,” Amazon’s “All or Nothing.”
CNN’s Richard Quest and Lindsay Tomlinson in interview with producer Nina L. Diaz. Credit: Courtesy Nina Diaz Productions
“It’s also rare that you get three women in a single organization that are that revered within the company for what they do and for the kind of influences that they can have on the designers and on the showmanship.”
The show includes interviews with three of Gucci’s founder’s daughters, Anna Gualtieri, Alessandra Facchinetti and Laura Borgognone, as well as current creative director Alessandro Michele. And while their work is celebrated, the women, along with Gucci’s factory, share some bittersweet memories about the period they worked for the brand.
They discuss being American women working under Italian management, the label’s early years when they were given a small production run of designer’s accessories, and the Tuscan landscape that Gucci created when they worked there.
“It’s important to recognize the challenges, but it’s also important to be very honest about what we all have inside of us, and it seems like those struggles motivated all of these women to be the artists that they are,” Tomlinson said.
Tomlinson didn’t know much about Gucci prior to being a producer, but she says she was quick to discover what a cult the brand has become among influencers and its ardent fans.
“Gucci is quite a studied icon. It has the power of a late night talk show host like David Letterman or Jimmy Fallon,” she said. “It has an epic story. There are people who want to put their hands on it or wear it.
“When I was watching the show, I was like, ‘Oh my god, all I knew about Gucci before today was how cute Bella Hadid looks in it,'” she continued. “You have the very interesting things that can make you feel a certain way and then there are people who are just obsessed.”
Tomlinson is currently in the midst of an eight-month, five-city tour as a writer for Fortune . She hopes that her time in Gucci has offered her an opportunity to have some fun with her job.
“People feel a certain way about their brands,” she said. “It’s important to get to know their story and what their story is, but also to take people with you when you are doing it, and try and make it fun for them. You can’t just be business on business.”