The House of Gucci

by Sara G Forden

  Maurizio, overhearing the telephone call, was mortified. He and Patrizia went out dancing that night at the disco down on the beach, but he couldn’t enjoy himself. The next morning he left at dawn and drove back to Milan. Maurizio apprehensively opened the solid wooden door to his father’s study. Rodolfo, seated behind his massive antique wooden desk, glared at his son and delivered the warning that sent Maurizio marching out of the house.

  Less than an hour later, Maurizio set his large suitcase, which bore the trademark green and red Gucci stripe, down on the step in front of Via dei Giardini 3. He rang the bell to Patrizia’s home. When she greeted him at the door, her eyes widened at the sight of the heavy suitcase and his sad blue eyes.

  “I’ve lost everything,” he cried. “My father has gone crazy. He has disinherited me, he has offended both you and me. I can’t even tell you the things he is saying.”

  Patrizia hugged him silently, stroking the back of his head. Then she straightened her arms and smiled up at him, her arms still encircling his neck.

  “We’re like Romeo and Juliet, and their families, the Montagues and the Capulets,” she said. She squeezed his hand to try and stop the trembling, then kissed him softly.

  “What am I going to do now, Patrizia?” he pleaded. “I don’t have a cent to my name,” he said in a voice that was almost a whine.

  Patrizia’s gaze grew serious. “Come with me,” she said, pulling him into the living room. “My father will be home soon. He likes you. We should talk with him.”

  Fernando received his daughter and the young Gucci in his study, a simply though elegantly furnished room with bookshelves, an antique wooden desk, two small armchairs, and a sofa. He liked Maurizio, despite his fury over Rodolfo’s insult.

  “Commendatore Reggiani,” Maurizio said in a low voice. “I have had a disagreement with my father that has forced me to leave my home and my family business. I am still in school and I don’t have a job. I am in love with your daughter and I would like to marry her, although now I have nothing to offer her.”

  Fernando listened carefully and questioned Maurizio further about the falling-out with Rodolfo. He trusted what the boy was telling him, both about his fight with his father and his feelings for Patrizia. He pitied Maurizio.

  “I will give you a job, and I will open my home to you,” Fernando finally said, choosing his words carefully, “on the condition that you finish your studies and you and my daughter stay away from each other. I will not tolerate any funny business under my roof, and if there is, all deals are off,” Fernando said, looking sternly at the boy. Maurizio nodded silently.

  “As for getting married, that remains to be seen, first because I am still smarting from the treatment your father gave me, and second, because I want to be sure you two are convinced. I will take Patrizia away on a long trip with me this summer and when I return, if you are still in love, then we will think about it.”

  In a move that would become a pattern throughout his adult life, Maurizio had closed down his relationship with Rodolfo—who criticized and circumscribed him—and found a new source of protection and strength in Patrizia and her family. To the Reggianis, Maurizio appeared so well intentioned and vulnerable they were glad to welcome him into their lives and save him from the irate and irrational Rodolfo. The sofa in the study became Maurizio’s bed for the next few months while he went to work for Reggiani by day and finished his studies at night.

  The news that the two young lovers were living under the same roof traveled like wildfire through Milan’s social circles. Patrizia’s friends brimmed with questions about what it was like to live with her boyfriend. Patrizia played her role discreetly.

  “Papà makes sure we hardly even pass each other in the hallway,” she complained, delighted at the eagerness of her listeners. “I never see Maurizio anymore. During the day he works with Papà’s business and at night he studies for his exams,” she pouted.

  While Maurizio learned the ropes in the trucking business, Rodolfo brooded bitterly, unable to accept Maurizio’s ready departure and willingness to give up all that awaited him just for a woman. Rodolfo’s pride kept him from seeking a reconciliation. Missing the evening meals he had shared with Maurizio, Rodolfo stayed in the office later and later each night, instructing the cook to leave him only a cold meal he would eat by himself—usually just fruit and a plate of cheese. When his brothers Aldo and Vasco came to see him, concerned about the rupture between father and son, he cut them short.

  “For me, that bischero, that fool of a son doesn’t exist anymore, do you understand?” he screamed.

  “His father never refused me as Patrizia Reggiani, but as the woman who was taking away his beloved son,” Patrizia said later. “For the first time, Maurizio was defying his orders and he was furious about it.”

  In the meanwhile, Reggiani left with Patrizia on a trip around the world. When they returned in September 1971, Patrizia and Maurizio were more in love than ever. Fernando’s managers reported that Maurizio had proven himself to be a serious worker with a good head on his shoulders. He didn’t hold back, and even did hard physical labor such as unloading containers at the docking bay. He took to heart the problems of the company, carefully coordinating the schedules of the truck drivers. Several days after their return, Reggiani called his daughter into his study.

  “Va bene,” he said to her. “OK. You two have convinced me that you are serious. I will agree to your marriage with Maurizio. It is a shame that Rodolfo is so stubborn, for by acting this way he will lose a son and I will gain one,” Reggiani said.

  The wedding date was set for October 28, 1972, and under Silvana’s watchful eye wedding plans gathered speed. When Rodolfo realized Maurizio was not going to relinquish Patrizia, he decided to take drastic measures. One morning in late September 1972, he went to see the cardinal of Milan, Giovanni Colombo—but not to seek spiritual solace. After a long wait in the somber, high-ceilinged hall outside the cardinal’s office which was located in a building just behind Milan’s cathedral, the Duomo, he made his appeal.

  “Your Eminence,” he begged the cardinal, “I need your help. The marriage between my son and Patrizia Reggiani must be stopped!”

  “On what grounds?” Cardinal Colombo asked.

  “He is my only son, his mother is dead, and he is all I have,” Rodolfo told him, trembling. “This Patrizia Reggiani is not the right woman for him and I am afraid. You are the only one who can stop them now!”

  The cardinal heard Rodolfo out.

  “I’m sorry,” he said finally, standing up to signal the end of the audience. “If they are in love and want to marry, there is nothing I can do to prevent it,” he said, ushering Rodolfo to the door.

  Rodolfo turned in on himself, brooding about his lost son. At the same time, Maurizio seemed reborn. He had received his law degree from Milan’s Catholic University. In the months he lived with the Reggianis, he realized that the world didn’t revolve around his father. He seemed more mature, and felt more in control of himself and his future—even if it wasn’t to be in his family firm. He was doing well and enjoying his work with Patrizia’s father, of whom he had grown fond. The Reggianis grew fond of him too; Maurizio even called Fernando “Papà Baffo” for his bristly gray mustache—though never to his face.

  “Maurizio even said openly that he enjoyed unloading the trucks!” marveled one of his friends. “Those were the years of the student movements in Italy. In Milan, as in other cities, there were marches and gang wars and tear gas in the downtown streets. Maurizio wasn’t involved in the student riots, but Patrizia was Maurizio’s rebellion. He had found his independence,” the friend said.

  Maurizio wasn’t completely at peace with himself, however. Several days before his marriage to Patrizia, he went to confession in the Duomo, Milan’s magnificent fourteenth-century cathedral. He walked into the lofty, shadowy nave and headed over to one of the confessionals along the side. He liked the feeling of anonymity, of being one among many, sensin
g murmuring voices, softly echoing footsteps, light filtering down hazily from high stained-glass windows.

  “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” Maurizio muttered, kneeling on the low padded bench inside the confessional. He lowered his head toward his hands, which he held, fingers knitted together, in front of the faded burgundy curtain.

  “I have disobeyed one of the ten commandments,” he said. “I have not honored my father’s wishes. I am going to marry against his will.”

  THE FOURTEENTH-CENTURY red brick basilica Santa Maria della Pace stands in a walled, tree-filled courtyard located directly behind the twentieth-century Milan courthouse. As is the custom in Italy, for the wedding Silvana had the pews draped in burgundy velvet and decorated with bunches of wild-flowers. Papino Reggiani splurged and hired an antique Rolls-Royce to deliver his daughter to the church and six ushers in tails escorted the guests. A brief reception in the halls of the Order of San Sepolcro under the church followed the ceremony, and later the five hundred guests sat down to dinner under the twinkling chandeliers at the Club dei Giardini—the same Milan social club where, with pulsing music and dramatic spotlights, Gucci would stage its modern fashion comeback twenty-three years later.

  Maurizio and Patrizia’s wedding was one of the big social events of the year—but not one of Maurizio’s relatives was there. Patrizia’s family, aware that Rodolfo opposed the marriage, had not invited him. Early that morning, Rodolfo had summoned his driver, Luigi, and ordered him to drive them to Florence on a pretense. “It seemed the whole city was celebrating this wedding,” Luigi recalled. “The only thing for Rodolfo to do was to leave town.”

  While the church overflowed with Patrizia’s friends and acquaintances, Maurizio’s guests included only one of his professors and some of his school friends. His uncle Vasco sent a silver vase.

  Patrizia was convinced that Rodolfo would come around. “Don’t worry, Mau,” she consoled him. “Things will sort themselves out. Just wait until a grandchild or two comes along; your father will make up with you.”

  Patrizia was right, but she wasn’t the type to leave things to chance. She lobbied Aldo, who had always been a strong advocate of the family nature of the business. He had been watching Maurizio and was impressed by his nephew’s determination to stand up to his father. He was beginning to realize that none of his own boys had the desire to join him in the United States to work with him, nor the ambition to carry on his work. His son Roberto had settled in Florence with his wife, Drusilla, and their flock of children; Giorgio had established himself in Rome, where he oversaw the two boutiques; and Paolo was working for Vasco in Florence.

  In April 1971, Aldo hinted to the New York Times that he was looking for a successor because his own sons could not be spared from their functions within the business. He said he might train a young nephew, soon to graduate from college. “Perhaps before he meets some unattractive young girl and settles into family life,” he added, “I will give him the challenge of becoming my replacement.” It was a strong signal for Maurizio.

  Aldo went to speak with Rodolfo.

  “Rodolfo, you are more than sixty years old. Maurizio is your only son. He is your true fortune. Look, Patrizia isn’t such a bad girl and I am convinced she really does love him.” He studied his brother, who had closed himself off with a rigid glare. Aldo realized he was going to have to get tough in his peacemaking effort.

  “Foffo!” Aldo said sharply. “Don’t be a fool! If you don’t bring Maurizio back into the fold, I am telling you, you will only be a bitter and lonely old man.”

  Two years had gone by since Maurizio had left home. That evening when he came home for dinner to the cozy attic apartment Reggiani had given them on Via Durini in the center of Milan, Patrizia greeted him with a mysterious smile.

  “I have good news for you,” she said. “Your father wants to see you tomorrow.” Maurizio looked surprised and happy.

  “You have your uncle Aldo to thank…and also me,” she said, as she threw her arms around him.

  The next day Maurizio walked the few blocks to his father’s office over the Gucci store, worrying over what they would say to each other. He didn’t have to. His father greeted him warmly at the door as if nothing had happened between them—in typical Gucci style.

  “Ciao, Maurizio!” Rodolfo said with a smile. “Come stai? How are you?”

  Neither mentioned their disagreements nor the wedding. Rodolfo asked about Patrizia.

  “How would you and Patrizia like to live in New York?” Maurizio’s eyes lit up. “Your uncle Aldo would like you to come over and give him a hand.”

  Maurizio was ecstatic. Less than a month later, the young couple moved to New York. Despite her enthusiasm about arriving in Manhattan, Patrizia was not thrilled with the third-rate hotel Rodolfo had arranged for them to stay in until they could find an apartment.

  “Your name is Gucci and we have to live like peasants?” she complained to Maurizio. The next day she moved them into a suite at the St. Regis Hotel on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Fifty-fifth Street, a few paces from the Gucci store. From there, they moved to one of Aldo’s rental apartments, where they lived for about a year until Patrizia spotted a luxury apartment in the Olympic Tower, the bronze-tinted glass skyscraper built by Aristotle Onassis. She loved the look of the elegant porter at the door, the floor-to-ceiling picture windows looking out over Fifth Avenue.

  “Oh, Mau, I want to live here!” she said, throwing her arms around him as he blushed in the presence of the real estate agent.

  “Are you crazy?” he protested. “How am I going to go to my father and say I’d like to buy a penthouse in Manhattan?”

  “Well, if you don’t have the courage to do it, I will,” she retorted.

  When Patrizia approached Rodolfo, he was furious. “You want to ruin me!” he accused her.

  “If you think about it, it is an excellent investment,” Patrizia retorted coolly.

  Rodolfo shook his head, but promised to think about it. Two months later, Patrizia had her apartment, which measured some 1,600 square feet over two floors. She covered the walls with taupe faux-suede fabric, furnished the rooms with modern pieces trimmed with smoked glass, and draped leopard and jaguar skins over the couches and on the floors. She drove happily around New York in a chauffeured car with vanity plates that read “Mauizia,” and generally enjoyed their New York life. She confessed once in a television interview that she would rather “weep in a Rolls-Royce than be happy on a bicycle.” Over the years, other gifts followed: a second apartment in Olympic Tower, hillside terrain in Acapulco on which she wanted to build, Cherry Blossom Farm in Connecticut, and a duplex penthouse in Milan.

  Rodolfo’s generosity was entirely in line with custom in Italy, where Italian parents generally provide living quarters for their children when they marry. Until marriage, grown children usually live at home with their parents. The gift of housing may range from accommodation within the family home to a co-op apartment or sometimes even an independent house. Wealthy parents, of course, can provide vacation villas and even overseas properties in addition to a principal residence.

  Because of Rodolfo’s rupture with Maurizio over Patrizia, the young couple had initially moved into an apartment that Papino Reggiani had offered them in Milan. Patrizia fretted, feeling they had a right to more. After Rodolfo and Maurizio reconciled, the presentation of the Olympic Tower apartment and the other properties to the young couple represented Rodolfo’s efforts to make amends—and, Patrizia felt, to thank her for all she was doing for Maurizio.

  “Rodolfo became more and more generous with me,” Patrizia recalled. “Every present was his way of thanking me for the happiness I was creating around my husband. In particular, it was his silent appreciation for my diplomatic work with his brother Aldo.”

  However, Patrizia did not receive title to the New York apartments, the Acapulco hillside, the Connecticut farm, or the penthouse in Milan. An offshore family holding company based in Liec
htenstein called Katefid AG—probably established as a tax shelter—held title to all of them. Putting family assets into holding companies was also an effective way to prevent the escape of family wealth. So if a daughter-in-law, for example, left the fold, she might have a very hard time establishing legal claim to any property “given” to her but actually deeded to the holding company.

  Patrizia, in love with Maurizio and elated over Rodolfo’s generosity, didn’t pay much attention to ownership issues back then. She devoted herself to being a good wife and mother. Alessandra, their first daughter, born in 1976, was named for Maurizio’s mother—a decision that made Rodolfo profoundly happy. Their second daughter, Allegra, followed in 1981.

  “We were like two peas in a pod,” Patrizia said. “We were faithful to each other and gave each other serenity. He let me take all the initiative in the house, with our social life, with the girls. He smothered me with attention, loving gazes, gifts…He listened to me.”

  In honor of Allegra’s birth, Maurizio made the most ambitious purchase of all—a 64-meter (208-foot), three-masted yacht called the Creole that had once been owned by Greek tycoon Stavros Niarchos. Sailors said it was the most beautiful ship in the world, although when Maurizio and Patrizia first saw Creole, she was little more than a dilapidated, rotting hull. Maurizio had bought the boat for what was considered a bargain price—less than $1 million—from a Danish drug rehabilitation program that could no longer use it. He shipped the yacht from the Danish shipyard where he had first seen it to Italy’s Ligurian port, La Spezia, for initial repairs. He planned to restore the Creole to its original beauty.

  Commissioned by Alexander Cochran, a rich American carpet manufacturer, from noted English shipbuilder Camper & Nicholson in 1925, the yacht was originally called the Vira and was one of the largest schooners built in its time. But the history of the schooner was also linked with tragedy. Cochran died prematurely of cancer and his heirs sold the ship shortly thereafter. It then changed ownership and name several times. After the war, when the vessel was decommissioned by the British navy, it returned to the commercial yacht market. Stavros Niarchos fell in love with it and bought it from a German businessman in 1953, rehabilitating it and renaming it the Creole. He replaced the small deckhouse with a spacious cabin in teak and mahogany large enough to contain a master bedroom and a studio—he was loathe to sleep belowdecks, terrified of drowning in his sleep. Whether or not one believes the sailor’s adage that it’s bad luck to change the name of a boat—and the Creole’s name had been changed three times—tragedy came to Niarchos. His first wife, Eugenia, took an overdose of pills and committed suicide on the Creole in 1970. A few years later his second wife, Tina, who was Eugenia’s younger sister, also killed herself on the yacht. In his grief, Niarchos came to hate the ship and never set foot on it again. He finally sold it to the Danish Navy, which turned it over to the drug rehabilitation institute. Maurizio bought the Creole in 1982.