Why Michele's Gucci Will Not Go On Sale

If you had your heart set on picking up some Gucci in the Black Friday sales, then prepare to have your hopeful heart broken: Gucci will not discount either of Alessandro Michele's first two collections. The company's CEO, Marco Bizzarri, confirmed that the collections would not go into sale - essentially because, thanks to how well the collections are selling already, there is no point in discounting them.

"The full-price sell-through is super high, so even if I put them on sale now, the impact on sales would be tiny," Bizzarri told the Business of Fashion. "I wanted to give the collection of Alessandro the longest-possible time at full price in the shop. It's so new for our company; so new for him. I think it's too early to put them on markdown now. Alessandro's fashion show collection started arriving in August, so two months and a half later, I didn't want to do this kind of action now."

Michele - who was in London last night to collect his British Fashion Award for Best International Designer, despite having helmed the brand for just 10 months - was flattered and surprised to receive the honour, and credited the senior management at Gucci for having the courage and foresight to take a risk on "an unknown guy like me".

"Now, the challenge that we have, the two of us, myself and Alessandro, is to keep on pushing ourselves to innovate as Alessandro innovated at the very beginning, and take risks. Always try to challenge our team and our people, and we always need to be at the front, at the edge of innovation. Keep on risking. Don't try to play safe," Bizzarri added, revealing that unsold stock is unlikely to be a problem for the company despite it eschewing markdowns. "What is important to say is that we didn't buy dramatically high when we bought the collection of Alessandro in the beginning. The full price sell-through was very, very high, so we don't have a lot left, frankly."