The Gucci Belt Is an Enduring Fashion Statement

Few who were in Milan for Fashion Week in 2015 will forget the buzz surrounding the Gucci ready-to-wear fall collection. The famous house’s creative director Frida Giannini had been axed a few weeks before, so all eyes were on 42-year-old Alessandro Michele to see what he’d created. He’d been given all of a week to do it. That Monday, the eyebrow-raising clothes on display represented “a different Gucci,” an impressed Robert Rabensteiner, editor of L’Uomo Vogue, later said. Gucci’s regular models had been nixed in favor of himbos with tattoos. Sporting berets and dorky glasses, they slinked down the runway in lace shirts and billowy cravats, silk sweaters and fur-lined loafers. It was an outré hodgepodge of thrift shop chic. Yet a single familiar item tied the ensembles together: the double G belt. Fashionistas had seen the belt before, but it had long fallen out of favor. Now, suddenly, it was back. Culture writer Christina Binkley recalls how fashion editors ran home to look for theirs. “They all started pulling out that belt. People reached into the backs of their closets,” she said. “I remember a fashion editor [saying], ‘I had to dig this thing out. It was in a shoebox.’” No surprise there. Fashion, as we know, is cyclical. But what distinguishes the Gucci logo belt—an accessory that’s enjoying its second renaissance right now—goes beyond its legacy. Logo belts are suddenly everywhere: Louis Vuitton, Hermès, Versace and Givenchy all have their own versions. But the double G is arguably the icon. Guccio Gucci’s son Aldo (1) developed the logo belt in 1933, and stores like the one in Milan (2) began to popularize them in the years afterward. Creative director Tom Ford (3) put the belt in the spotlight in the 1990s before Alessandro Michele’s debut show in 2015 (4) rejuvenated it, opening up the field for celebs like Miley Cyrus (5) to wear it. Belts have been part of the offerings since 1921 when Guccio Gucci opened a small leather goods shop in Florence, Italy. But it was his son Aldo who created the monogram buckle with his father’s initials in 1933. Fashion logos didn't become trendy until the 1970s, though, and the Gucci belt’s popularity has ebbed and flowed since. Gucci creative director Tom Ford made the double G glitzy in the late 1990s, until the 2008 recession dulled its shine. Yet the Alessandro Michele resurgence has been an enduring one. By March 2017, Gucci reported its strongest quarter in 20 years, with revenues growing by 51%. Owing just to a belt? Well, not entirely. But the truth is that clothing is rarely a profit center for the fashion houses; it’s accessories like fragrance, sunglasses and wallets that make the margins. “If I were at the Harvard Business Review and I wanted to choose a luxury fashion product that sort of epitomized how the industry really works,” Binkley said, “that [Gucci] belt might be it.” The Gucci Crew If you’ve seen any hip-hop videos in the past few years, odds are you’ve seen a lot of double G belts. Not only do rappers wear them, but some (Soup, 637godwin, Leps and YNW BSlime) also have songs titled "Gucci Belt." How did a Milan runway accessory work its way into hip-hop? Most agree it started when Harlem designer Dapper Dan started appropriating the Gucci logo for his designs. Instead of suing him, a savvy Alessandro Michele partnered with him instead. But Gucci’s accessories, ever the symbols of wealth, would likely have found a home in hip-hop anyway—and Kanye West introducing “It’s Gucci” (translation: “It’s good”) to the argot didn’t hurt, either.

Perspective

The Gucci Belt, With Immortalized Brass Initials, Is an Enduring Fashion Statement

Why the logo accessory is enjoying its second renaissance

Robert Klara

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Robert Klara