A credit card from Bloomingdale's as a present - this is the worst possible insult to a woman who, as the daughter of a small haulage company, married into one of the mighty fashion empires of Milan and incited her husband to leverage the rest of the family.

Several generations owe their money, their status, their houses, their art, their shoes with gold inlay to the house of Gucci.

Jackie Kennedy had once bought her pearls at Bloomingdale's, the upper middle class department store, as revealed by a marketing campaign after her death.

But Gucci doesn't buy in department stores.

The credit card proves the excommunication from the family before the divorce papers are on the table.

Verena Lueken

Freelance writer in the features section.

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It is Maurizio Gucci who inflicts this insult on his wife Patrizia at a Christmas party at the low point of their marriage. How else than with lust for murder and its planned implementation could a self-respecting woman react to it? But by then the best part of the film that tells this story is over. The assassination of Maurizio Gucci, which not only plunged the fashion world into sheer horror on March 27, 1995 and which the film "House of Gucci" is approaching (based on the book by Sara Gay Forden "The House of Gucci: A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamor and Greed ”from 2001) is not the climax of the film. Ridley Scott stages it with almost no drama, an inevitable but banal plot in a piece of smear that has to come to its amateurish end.

An espresso cup and a manicured man's hand

Until then, however, there will be a lot of beautiful people, tasteful decorations, malicious dialogues, sex and duels to see, combined with a playlist of new wave songs that were almost forgotten, but now their catchy tune again for those who enjoy Blondie, the Eurythmics, George Michael or David Bowie.

In between, a look at the clock shows that everything is taking a little too long.

There are hardly any fashion shows until, shortly before the end, a glimpse of the parade with the notorious bare male butt, which (if not alone) ensured that with Tom Ford as chief designer, Gucci suddenly became a cool brand for a while .

A watch, a signet ring, a belt buckle, an espresso cup and a manicured man's hand putting out a cigarette - these are the first images in Ridley's Scotts film, and almost the last. What happens in the time loop in between can be seen as a family tragedy, the decline and temporary resurrection of a company, a class lesson or a show of wonderful actors. There is a little bit of everything, and if there is a problem with this film, it is this: too many themes and no center. That is because of the script - on the other hand: Too much of everything is in a way the principle of the company in question. At least after she has left the isolated realm of loyal customers, tradition and craftsmanship for many years and headed for the world market. Couldn't it have turned out differently?