Pick apart the money-spinning world of luxury fashion

When we think of fashion, we think of style, design, innovation and art. But that’s just the fin of the shark. Beneath the waves created by its cycle of runways, fashion is a predator, driven by relentless greed.

Fashion today is a trillion-dollar industry, dominated by two billionaires who’re trading competing fashion brands like kids trade Pokemon cards. When fashionistas buy Celine, Guerlain, Marc Jacobs, Fendi, Hermès or Christian Dior (just a few of the 70 luxury brands owned by one company), the man at the top of the money pile is Bernard Arnault. Buy anything from Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, Balenciaga, and Alexander McQueen, and François Pinault cashes in. People will pay through the nose for prestige and status, and in the world of luxury brands, Pinault and Arnault ensure that they do.

Showmax lifts the runway red carpet to expose backstabbing greed beneath the glamour in two fascinating pieces: the movie House of Gucci, and the high fashion documentary mini-series Kingdom of Dreams, a riveting introduction to the financial forces driving luxury brands.

House of Gucci (2021)

As well as telling the deadly story of the in-fighting in the Gucci family that led to head of the fashion house Maurizio Gucci (Adam Driver) being murdered by his ex-wife, Patrizia Reggiani (Lady Gaga), the film House of Gucci dives into the saga of how the Gucci family lost control of their empire, down to their family name, to Francois Pinault.

Director Ridley Scott and costumier Janty Yates drew on the autobiography of Nemir Kidar, founder of the Investcorp group, which first bought out Gucci shares. But the core of the story comes from journalist Sara Gay Forden’s book The House of Gucci: A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour, and Greed. (You'll also see her being interviewed in Kingdom of Dreams.)

To recreate this world of hyper-luxury on screen, roughly 60% of the clothes on screen were made by the wardrobe team, 30% were vintage, and 10% contemporary. Vintage clothes were loaned from fashion houses and costume hire warehouses like Tirelli Costumi in Rome (the end credits are long and worth pausing).

The rest were made from scratch – based on the brands’ style at the time – as seen on celebrities like Bianca Jagger and the crowd at famous American nightclub Studio 54 – by tailor Dominic Young and his studio. And for the crème de la crème, Janty negotiated access to the Gucci archives, borrowing 20 pieces to examine in detail, but eventually using just two outfits on screen. And she took thousands of photos at the Gucci museum in Florence.

Dressing Patrizia in House of Gucci

Through Patrizia’s 65 costume changes, we see her very specific eye for fashion. Aside from images and footage of Patrizia herself, Lady Gaga put forward her own mother, Cynthia Germanotta as a reference, while Ridley’s key reference was sultry Italian actress Gina Lollobrigida, whose sexy glamour might have been a real-life inspiration to Patrizia.

Patrizia famously thought of Gucci as a somewhat stodgy brand (before Tom Ford stepped in as creative director, as showcased in the film), so between 1975 and 1995, she mostly wore Yves Saint Laurent, Givenchy, Versace, Armani and Chanel. Patrizia’s handbags, though, are almost always authentic, vintage Gucci.

It’s actually at two of her lowest points that we see Patrizia wearing those Gucci outfits from the brand’s own archives. She wears a vintage Double G tunic and trousers with leather trim in the scene in which she discovers the Gucci knockoffs being sold at a street stall (mirroring Patrizia’s own efforts to usurp control of the Gucci name). And she's wearing a Double G silk blouse and leather skirt when she receives her divorce papers.

But House of Gucci’s most fascinating visual commentary on the brand might come in the fictional collection created by Paolo Gucci (Jared Leto), whose vision seems in step with the brand’s current challenging, maximalist aesthetic. Janty’s associate costume designer, Stefano De Nardis (who also recreated the film’s Versace 1984 and Tom Ford 1995 fashion shows), created this collection from scratch, as an homage to fun bad taste!

Kingdom of Dreams (4-part miniseries)

For a deeper look into the world of fashion and creative directors during the great corporate shake-ups in the three critical decades from the 1990s to 2010, Showmax has the documentary mini-series Kingdom of Dreams.

Episode 1 covers the John Galliano revolution, the rise of mogul Bernard Arnault, and Vogue editor Anna Wintour’s role as matchmaker between brands and hot new design talent. Episode 3 tackles the rivalry between François Pinault and Bernard Arnault and the pressure it put on their star designers John Galliano, Tom Ford, and Alexander McQueen and Marc Jacobs. And episode 4 examines the fallout from these fashion wars today.

But if you love House of Gucci, you have to watch episode 2, which explores Bernard Arnault and LVMH’s (headed by François Pinault) competition in the hostile takeover of House of Gucci, and how this affected rising creative director Tom Ford and lawyer Domenico De Sole, who had hand-picked Tom to goose up the brand’s designs when they were at their dullest.

Even before Tom’s first Gucci collection hit the runway, the radically different approach at Gucci had models, seamstresses, buyers and manufacturers buzzing about the sharp, seductive, modern clothes in the making. But as the episode points out, while the clothes made the buzz, it was in the sales of the handbags that went down the runway with each model that Gucci would really cash in, thanks to massive, massive markups. It was a business model that could be exploited across a range of brands within a fashion portfolio. No wonder Bernard Arnault and François Pinault swept in!

PS: The episode also includes archive interviews with the real Patrizia Reggiani, giving us a glimpse of her mannerisms and how she dressed.

Fashion’s billionaire war and resulting drive for constant consumption has made it one of the largest global polluters and exploiters of underpaid and enslaved workers. Catch hold of this shiny thread in the fabric of history when you settle in to watch how it’s all happening, only on Showmax.

Fashion lovers, also watch…

Agnelli

Documentary film about Gianni Agnelli, the chief shareholder of Italian motoring brand Fiat. A contemporary of the Guccis, Gianni’s approach to business and style will feel intriguingly familiar after watching House of Gucci.

HBO's In Vogue: The Editor’s Eye

Documentary film on the way the magazine’s editors have shaped the world of fashion, centred on discussing some of Vogue’s most famous images.

Aso Egun

Nigerian movie about a young, ambitious fashion designer named Toke whose use of a sacred fabric leads to complications in her life and career.

The Dressmaker

Kate Winslet plays glamorous dressmaker Tilly Dunn who returns to her small town in Australia and sets about shaking things up with help from her sewing machine in this movie about the joy of self-expression through fashion.

Lokshin Fashionista

In this fun romcom movie, a Sowetan slay queen battles to strike a balance between her heart and her dreams when she starts working for a seductive designer who treats women with contempt.