The Prague Post Online: Tempo: Around Town

December 5th, 2008

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Around Town

Gucci comes to town

By Benjamin Thomas Cunningham
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
May 21st, 2008 issue

Aspen has “Gucci gulch,” with its high-end label stores beckoning to folks who have no intention of skiing its famous slopes.

Prague now has its own “Gucci glitter” on Pařížská street, in a building that used to house the Czech Union of Journalists and its watering hole. It’s somewhat of a sweet twist of irony when you think about it: The building that sheltered the mouthpiece of socialism in Czechoslovakia now is a shining paean to consumer capitalism.

But that’s all quickly forgotten as you listen to Mark Lee, the company’s chief executive, talk about the brand’s expansion plans. Prague might be the first stop on Gucci’s new Central Europe expansion, but it’s not the only one. Budapest will get its own Gucci store this fall, Lee said.

West European customers still rule, snapping up 35 percent of Gucci’s products and contributing mightily to its total $2.2 billion in sales last year. But the Asia-Pacific region is closing fast, making up 24 percent of the market. Japan, mentioned separately, makes up 16 percent of sales. U.S. customers were 21 percent of sales last year, Lee said in a press conference touting the store.

Lee likes to say that the brand has created “desire” in its customers, making the idea concrete as a wish for an exclusive 35,000 euro crocodile bag (or two or three).

And, in a somewhat scary picture of how global marketing and advertising now drive purchases around the world, most of the more than 20,000 potential customers chose Gucci when asked in a Nielsen survey if price were no object what luxury brand they would most like to buy.

“There’s tremendous desire we’ve created for the brand,” he says.

Think the average Prague resident just doesn’t have the funds for such expensive items? You’d be wrong, according to Lee. Since the store’s “soft” opening in March, 60 percent of the customers have been local.

Not to say that things can’t go downhill later. In an uncertain economy, Gucci pulled out all the stops in a press event May 12. Men with trays of champagne glasses stood at the ready at 11 a.m. Tiny hors d’oeuvres were presented, as were gift bags at the door.

Gucci hightops, sneakers, sunglasses and trendy clothes line the walls of the former “journalist house.” High ceilings and archways lend a graceful air to Gucci’s natural wood fittings. Glamorous women milled around the journalists — one wearing a headset that translated Lee’s speech simultaneously into Czech.

At a party later that evening, Czech celebrities like Alena Šeredová (a model married to Italian soccer star Gianluigi Buffon), Eliška Bučková, Simona Krainová and Radka Kocúová wowed the crowd with Gucci fashions.

Bang & Olufsen, the high-end electronics store, is fixing up the spot across the street. And the popular Rossman drug store on the opposite corner is now closed to make way for another high-end spot, we’re sure.

Guccio Gucci was the 1920s Italian founder whose double G initials are now a symbol synonymous with the fancy accessories and clothing coveted by broad swaths of the buying public around the world from rappers and ladies who lunch.

Shoppers in Prague checked out the exclusive hightop tennis shoes, the sunglasses, the bags. Several were dressed in Gucci fashions from head to toe.

Papa Gucci would be proud.

Benjamin Thomas Cunningham can be reached at bcunningham@praguepost.com

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