By the time I returned to New York a few days later Papà was about as broken as I had ever seen him. I found him sitting alone in his apartment at dusk, staring aimlessly into space. “Shall we get something to eat?” I suggested softly, but he didn’t move.
“I’m not hungry,” he replied. “You go ahead. I’ll be fine.”
My mother flew back to New York to be at his side while he continued to prepare his legal defense. She was better than she’d been in recent months but still deeply troubled. One day when she was at a low ebb, I decided to share some information that I hoped might make her happy.
“I’m pregnant.” Speaking the words out loud made it much more real somehow. With the dark clouds hanging over us all, I’d been agonizing about the right time to reveal my recently discovered news. I loved Santino and I wanted this child more than anything, but I was painfully aware that my parents would think I was too young to have a baby.
“I knew it,” my mother responded with something akin to resignation. “I had a dream about a little girl running around in a summer dress. You’re going to have a girl.”
Trusting her vision completely, I was pleased but had to confess, “I’d always dreamed of having a boy.” Then I told her the second part of my news. “Santino and I are getting married.”
Her reaction wasn’t quite what a daughter might have hoped for. She drew in a breath before saying, “Okay, but let’s not tell your father right away. He has too much on his mind and he doesn’t need another shock.”
He had only recently been introduced to Santino and it seemed premature to make such an announcement. Although I’m sure he wouldn’t have objected, the prospect wouldn’t have thrilled him either. I only hoped that when the time came, he’d be happy for me.
After a pause Mamma asked, “Is it really necessary for you to get married?”
Coming from her, this surprised me. “I want my child to have the best possible start in life,” I said, explaining what I thought to be all too obvious. “With a mummy and a daddy who are together as husband and wife, like a normal family—as you would have liked had things been different.”
Seeing her dubious expression, I added, “Don’t worry, Mamma, it’ll be a small, intimate affair—just us, Santino’s family, and a few of our friends.”
Heeding my mother’s advice, Santino agreed that we should wait until Christmastime to tell my father, when we’d all be together in Palm Beach. He’d be more relaxed there and it would be easier to broach the subject without too many distractions, we thought. I picked my moment a few days after we arrived. Settling next to him, I fanned my fingers across my tummy and said, “There’s something you should know, Papà—I’m going to have a baby.”
He stared at me, his face expressionless. Eventually, he said flatly, “I’m happy for you.”
Speaking quickly, as if to catch his train of thought before he had a chance to say anything else, I hurried to explain. “We didn’t plan this and I know it’s not what you would have wanted right now but Santino and I are in love and we’re getting married—in Jamaica.”
He turned away from me and closed his eyes, adding another item to the list of quandaries he had to ponder. Eventually he spoke. “We’ll have to make some arrangements to protect your interests. I’m not taking any chances.” Softening, he turned back and said, “Organize a nice wedding—anything you want.”
When I told him what we had planned he just nodded and smiled. This wasn’t what he had in mind for me but I was prepared for that.
Like any man who has to ask a father for his daughter’s hand in marriage, Santino was anxious. In the end he blurted out the question on Christmas Day while my father was carving the turkey. With a twelve-inch knife in one hand and a fork in the other, Papà glared at his future son-in-law for a moment before putting down his tools and shaking Santino’s hand in consent.
We were to be married three weeks later on January 19, 1985. Friends and family, twenty-five in all, were invited to take part in a ceremony to be held in a quaint sixteenth-century church built by Catholic missionaries in St. Ann’s Bay, on the north side of Jamaica. Santino’s parents would be there along with his two brothers, but only one member of my father’s family. The sole representative would be Roberto’s thirdborn son, Uberto, who happened to be passing through New York and decided to come at the last minute.
My friend Maria and her boyfriend were coming, along with Andrea—my maid of honor—and several of my friends from New York. The dress code for the men was strictly white but Santino’s father and brothers decided to ignore our request, showing up in black suits. After the service, guests would be taken to the oceanfront villa we had rented for our time in Jamaica for a reception on the beach.
A couple of weeks earlier while my fiancé and I were in Montego Bay taking care of all the arrangements, Papà’s attorney flew in from New York with a prenuptial agreement for Santino to sign. He did so willingly.
The morning of the wedding was chaotic, with a lot of last-minute problems, which fell upon me to sort out, as my mother had not been involved in any of the planning. When everything was calm, I put on my outfit—shalwar kameez trousers and a long cream silk shirt, which hid my growing bump. It was a gift from the African-American designer Willi Smith—my landlord and neighbor downtown in Tribeca.
Once I was ready, Andrea accompanied me to the church, where my father waited to walk me down the aisle. Although neither of us would have had it any other way, it still meant the world to me that he had taken time off from his crazy schedule and the pressures of the pending legal case to put me first.
He looked so distinguished in his blue shirt and cream linen suit waiting for me near the path that led to the chapel. “Sei bellissima!” he pronounced with a smile, his arm bent for mine. “This is your day, Patricia. Nothing will spoil it.”
My nerves began to kick in as we walked up the aisle toward my waiting groom, also dressed in white. Like every bride, I wondered if I was doing the right thing. I felt my father’s arm tighten around mine as we approached the priest, who stood smiling at us in his cassock.
Mamma stood impassively in the front row, still showing signs of her reservations about my decision. “I’m not sure he’s the one for you, Patricia,” she had said. We came from different worlds, something my parents were only too quick to point out. She knew that kind of incompatibility, coupled with having a baby at such a young age, would come to haunt us. She also appreciated I was strong, however, and she hoped for the best.
Breathing in deeply one last time, I stepped up alongside Santino and faced the priest, his hands folded together as he waited for everyone to settle. I went to slip my arm from my father’s but he refused to let go and pulled me even closer.
“Very funny, Papà,” I whispered. Still, he clung on, staring straight ahead with a strange expression. After an awkward pause, I tugged my arm free, only for him to grab my wrist in view of everyone. Turning to me, his eyes filling with tears, he loosened his grip before giving my hand one last squeeze. I thought he was going to say something but in the end he didn’t have to say a word.
Pulling himself together, he attempted a smile and then went to join my mother. Blinking back the tears, I fought the urge to embrace him and tell him that I understood. The fact that he loved me had always been an unspoken certainty and yet, in that moment, he wanted me to know it. In that rickety old church he gave me the greatest gift a father can give a child—his unconditional, unspoken love. And, with his actions, my most precious memory of him.
Later that afternoon we all gathered on the lawn of our villa, where we served a traditional Jamaican spit-roast goat on the beach while a calypso band played Harry Belafonte tunes, which got everyone into the island spirit. Santino’s father got my mother tipsy and I have never seen anything quite so hysterical, nor has she ever laughed so much since. The whole day was scintillating and perfect, as I had always imagined it would be.
For three days and nights we were a regul
ar, happy family. Nobody would have known that Papà was in the midst of a crisis. From the moment he arrived, all his stress seemed to melt away. Although there were clearly things on his mind, he took off his jacket and tried his best to enjoy himself, determined not to let anything spoil our few days together, and for that I will be eternally grateful.
When we returned to America there was little to be happy about, however. Maurizio, the self-proclaimed “peacemaker” who claimed he would “repair” the damage, had maneuvered himself into the position of chairman of Guccio Gucci SpA as well. He made my father “honorary chairman” of the Italian arm, but the title was meaningless. In Papà’s view, Maurizio then tore the soul right out of the business. He transplanted the Gucci headquarters from Florence to swanky new offices in Milan, a short drive from his home. Then he began to squander millions, marking the beginning of an obscene spending spree.
Having bought a jet and with a profligate reputation, he was dubbed “the free-spending rampant heir” by the press and continued to drive the company further into the ground. With little regard for loyalty or experience, he fired many of our longest-serving staff, including Ruby Hamra. He then pared down the franchise operation and “streamlined” the organization, which would report record profits of $63 million that year, demolishing a huge part of what my father had spent decades building up.
Papà stood by helplessly as he watched this systematic dismemberment of the business—his business. Maurizio, who he said was suffering from “disastrous megalomania,” then reneged on the deal he’d struck with Paolo; in exchange for Paolo’s shares, he had agreed to give him the autonomy to create his own designs. Fresh legal battles ensued. My father was distraught. He had promised Rodolfo on his deathbed that he would watch over his only son and not let Patrizia near the family millions. Now, as the company’s PR machine proclaimed her the virtual “Queen of Gucci,” he felt he’d let Foffo down.
The one thing my uncle Rodolfo would have welcomed, however, was the unexpected crumbling of Maurizio’s marriage. Abandoning Patrizia—mother to their two daughters—he locked her out of one of their homes and publicly humiliated her. Few had any sympathy but all suspected she wouldn’t go quietly.
I was far too busy with complications of my own to worry about what was going on in Italy. My marriage was beginning to show signs of strain, and by the time my daughter Alexandra was born on July 2, 1985, after a difficult labor in Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, I suspected things weren’t right between us. Andrea and her sister came to see me, and my mother was there but had to rush back to Rome to be with my father, who was trying to sort out his decimated affairs. She stayed just long enough to see her granddaughter, commenting on how beautiful she was.
Being in Santino’s presence was difficult for her. “This man is no good for you,” she would say, sensing he would not be there when I really needed him. Unsurprisingly, he left a couple of weeks after she did, saying he had business to attend to in Sardinia.
I had been in the hospital ten days and it took me weeks to recover from an infection as a result of my Caesarian. I was so weak I could barely stand up, let alone hold Alexandra in my arms. I only wished my mother were there to take care of me. Thankfully Andrea came to the rescue when Santino left and with the help of a trusty book by child care expert Dr. Spock, she and I figured out the basics.
When Papà eventually returned to the city, five weeks after his granddaughter’s birth, he jumped in a cab and made his way to my loft downtown in Tribeca—a district that seemed to him like the end of the world. As he picked his way through garbage bins and past sweat factories, he wondered what on earth a daughter of his was doing living there. When he held Alexandra in his arms, however, all that was forgiven. Even though he was a grandfather ten times over, this was different. My mother said she’d never seen him so enamored as Alexandra brought out a tenderness in him that he hadn’t even shown with me.
Santino and I went through good and bad days but we enjoyed being new parents, and seeing our baby girl’s early interactions with the world. And although I loved being a mother, I knew that I would eventually be returning to work and, more important, be at my father’s side.
He would never admit it but I think he increasingly felt that he was fighting a losing battle. The more he grappled for power, the more elusive his objectives became. Relinquishing control was the only way to survive. My mother had come to this realization years earlier and he’d seen how it had brought her a sense of peace. He began to listen with greater interest whenever she spoke of the release she found in her beliefs.
Having grown up in a devout Catholic environment, she never questioned the existence of God, and yet she had never really come to terms with her faith.
“I was faithful without being religious,” she told my father. “I believed but not with any passion. Then my guru told me that everything was God and I suddenly grasped all that he said. That resonated with me.”
Deciding it was finally time to meet this guru of hers, my father flew to London so they could visit him together. To his surprise, he was completely won over by the soulful Indian sage. “You must pray and pray, then trust in the outcome,” Sari Nandi advised. Before their encounter my father had always gone to church on Sundays and been religious in his own quiet, understated way. But from that day on, he prayed regularly, often stopping off at St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue, a short walk from his apartment.
His prayers seemed to have been answered when he discovered something that looked as if it might change everything. Uncle Rodolfo’s assistant Roberta had contacted my father from Milan to tell him that two days after Foffo died, Maurizio had ordered her to forge his signature on some Gucci share certificates. When she refused, he had someone else do it. Once “signed,” these false documents released him from millions of dollars of inheritance taxes.
Papà took the information to a Florentine magistrate, who immediately sequestered the shareholding, pending further inquiries. My father then launched a civil action claiming his nephew had taken control of the company “by illicit means.” Maurizio flatly denied the allegations but before he knew it he was ousted from Guccio Gucci SpA, paving the way for Papà to resume normal service as chairman.
With a series of twists and turns that were slavishly reported in the press, he was thwarted at the last minute when Maurizio had the decisive board meeting postponed. In his nephew’s last act of betrayal, my father returned from Italy to find his New York office had been stripped in his absence and a letter of dismissal waiting. There were almost twenty members of his family working for the company worldwide by then but for the first time in more than sixty years, he was no longer one of them. Maurizio, as the US chairman, issued a press release confirming that Gucci had “terminated Aldo Gucci’s role in the company” and that he would no longer have any position whatsoever.
Distraught, my father immediately rang Mamma. “They’ve taken everything—everything, Bruna!” he wailed. Unable to console him, she urged him to keep the faith, as Sari Nandi had told him. “We must pray, Aldo,” she insisted. “We can do nothing else.”
Our name is very often what defines us. Who we are and, importantly, who others think we are have an immediate effect on how we interact with them. Since my days at Hurst Lodge I have understood that my surname carries a certain prestige and have learned to live with the double takes every time I hand over my credit card or book an appointment. Whenever I’m asked to spell it out, I take a breath and slowly enunciate it letter by letter, “G-U-C-C-I.”
When I met people in London and New York, I introduced myself simply as “Patricia.” It was easier that way. Later I used my married name, preferring to remain anonymous. Things have come full circle now because my daughters, against my best advice, have all decided to incorporate the name with their fathers’ surnames, running the risk of being perceived as something other than who they really are.
For my father, his name meant everything. Long before he and my g
randfather reinvented the company history, he was proud of what they’d achieved and how they’d turned the family’s fate around through hard work, vision, and determination. They went from destitute hatmakers in rural Tuscany to a luxury goods powerhouse with an unrivaled brand identity. These were heirlooms Papà fully intended to hand down through the generations to his sons, his nephew, and—ultimately, I suppose—to me and my children.
At eighty years old, he could never have imagined that his name would one day be sullied or—worse—that it would be his own flesh and blood who would bring about its disgrace. The change of circumstance was a huge adjustment for him and I knew how unsettled it left him. With no office to go to for the first time in decades and no clear direction for him in the business, he had no choice but to set up a temporary New York base in an apartment adjacent to his and try to maintain his dignity. Mamma was mostly in Italy, flying into New York for a month at a time and then retreating back to her sanctuary. His secretary came in every day to help him with his calls and his endless correspondence with lawyers, accountants, colleagues, and his family back in Italy.
When he suggested that Santino and I move from Tribeca back to my old apartment opposite his, I immediately agreed. Our new “home” was dated and somewhat depressing after our bright, white, airy loft, so my father gladly let me update it to suit a young family.
It felt good to be close to him again, especially at such a dreadful time. He was, by then, greatly diminished, and there was a ragged look about him that broke my heart. Fortunately, I was kept so busy I didn’t have time to dwell. Still on the board and a director of the company in charge of displays, I had my work cut out for me, which included voting on motions put to the board regarding the direction of the company. Giorgio and Roberto were also on the board but remained in Italy, from where they could report back to Papà. I had very little contact with them, and my father was the only one who dealt with their concerns. Whichever side of the Atlantic we were on, we were all forbidden from divulging any information to my father, although, of course, we did. I, especially, became his eyes and ears for anything to do with reports, minutes, and letters that passed to and fro. I knew Maurizio and his cohorts could dismiss me if my indiscretions came to light but it was a risk I was prepared to take.
In the Name of Gucci Page 22