Meet The Gucci Muse Who Inspired The Brand’s Latest It Bag

Gucci has a new It bag to covet – and it isn’t covered in rhinestones, studs, or tiger embroideries, nor is it shaped like a basketball or a Mickey Mouse head. In fact, it’s almost startlingly ladylike, with a boxy silhouette, a single top handle, and shiny hardware merging Gucci’s classic horsebit with interlocking Gs. The hybridised “logo” could be considered a nod to the house’s past and present, but Alessandro Michele actually discovered it deep in the archives; struck by how modern it looked so many years later, he decided to bring it back for 2019.

Dubbed the Zumi bag, it was sported by a number of celebrities at yesterday’s show: Saoirse Ronan’s was hunter green leather, Salma Hayek chose a miniature red one and Lou Doillon slung her mini Zumi over her shoulder on a detachable chain. Another woman – one you likely didn’t recognise – carried a large black version with a sparkly suit, a pink silk blouse and about a dozen chain necklaces. Her hair was chopped into messy bangs, and she’d drawn exaggerated Cleopatra eyeliner across her lids. In many ways, she looked like the ultimate Gucci muse – and she sort of is. She’s Zumi Rosow, the musician, jewellery designer and newly minted Gucci model after whom Michele named the bag.

Rosow first debuted her namesake bag on Gucci’s spring/summer 2019 runway, though you may have missed it. Carrying it again in “real life” (and seeing it on so many other attendees, too) was even more surreal: “It feels completely insane, like a dream,” Rosow wrote to Vogue. Flipping through her Instagram, you begin to understand why Michele wanted to bring her into the Gucci fold: She has a highly individual sense of style and expresses herself fearlessly; she’s unedited, uncontrived, and doesn’t seem particularly interested in capital-F fashion (aside from Gucci, of course). In her email, she described her look as such: “I’m like, part Bastet, the Egyptian cat goddess, part bat, vampire, Zarina, a leather daddy, Joan of Arc, the wild child...”

How did that translate to such a chic and minimalist bag? you wonder. According to Gucci, it’s “a kind of in-joke” between Michele and Rosow, because the Zumi’s refined, sleek lines contrast so sharply with its namesake’s aesthetic. “[Alessandro] is magical,” Rosow continues. “Everything he does reflects this wisdom and mysticism. I feel like his creations articulate my dreams.” On experiencing the show from the sidelines for the first time, she said: “It’s like witnessing Zeus throwing lightning bolts and being showered by their golden dust. I was honestly blown away by everything... I can still hear the sound of the metal on the boots of two of the men’s looks as they walked by. It sounded like a cowboy’s spurs! Punk cowboy warriors in a Greek tragedy! It felt very me!” If that’s speaking to you, too, the first drop of Zumi bags has already arrived in Gucci’s stores and online (including one that’s printed, inexplicably, with cartoon strawberries).