Italian fashion house Gucci has named Italian stylist Frida Giannini its new creative director, taking over the mantle once worn by star designer Tom Ford.
It has taken Giannini just two years to climb the management ladder at Gucci, after starting out in accessories.
Giannini, 33, took over the women's line from Alessandra Facchinetti last year.
Her latest challenge is to supervise the men's line, taking over from Scotsman John Ray who stepped down on Tuesday.
Gucci's post-Ford triad has thus been replaced by a single creative brain, a woman who has her eye firmly on cash returns.
The Giannini-Facchinetti-Ray trio was put in place after the dramatic exit of Ford and CEO Domenico De Sole in November 2003. That duo, which brought Gucci back to the top of the fashion world in the 1990s, left amid concerns that new French owners Pinault-Printemps-Redoute (PPR) favoured results over creativity.
Giannini is seen as a tough young manager with her eye on the bottom line as well as hemlines.
Her first women's line came out in December to mixed reviews but has proved a strong seller. Giannini's next test will be when her second Gucci Donna collection is presented on February 22. For the first time ever Gucci is rolling out two lines in a bid to satisfy as many buyers as possible.
Industry experts say that Giannini's dynamism at accessories and the women's department played a large part in Gucci's 13.6% rise in profits in 2005. The Roman-born designer has been quoted as saying: "Creativity must create business. If it doesn't do this, then even the most beautiful article is useless."
Facchinetti's collections, for instance, were praised by the fashion critics but they failed to help Gucci sell more of its ready-to-wear women's dresses. As for Ray, he is believed to have been happy to leave because his creative priorities were formed while working closely with Ford for ten years.
Giannini will need all her sales-oriented creativity in the coming years to meet a target set recently by the Gucci group's CEO Robert Polet. He wants sales to double within the next seven years. Giannini is reportedly a born leader, able to form a strong team around her. According to whispers from inside the company, this was one of her former colleagues' weaknesses. Before arriving at Gucci, Giannini was at Fendi where she was part of the team responsible for the popular "Fendi Baguette Bag" which carried price tags of up to 10,000 euros each.
Giannini, who is daughter of an architect with a passion for horses, will be under intense pressure to make the group perform as well as it did under Tom Ford, analysts say. The Texan designer joined Gucci in the mid-1990s and, along with De Sole, built it up into world's third-biggest luxury empire.
It now includes Yves Saint Laurent, Bottega Veneta, British bad-boy designer Alexander McQueen, Stella McCartney and Balenciaga.
