The other day I watched House of Gucci—a biographical movie directed by Ridley Scott about the Tuscan dynasty representing the famous luxury fashion house. The story is based on a nonfiction book written by Sara Gay Forden, The House of Gucci: A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour, and Greed (Custom House, 2021).

Apart from all the drama and all the glamour, what I was looking for was how the Gucci family approached quality. As a quality manager and researcher, I had previously addressed the subject of perceived quality and how some manufacturers, especially the manufacturers of luxury goods, had worked to purposefully create the impression of high quality.¹ Often, their reputations for craftsmanship would later be abused by unscrupulous dealers who flooded the markets with knockoffs. It’s in this respect that I found one deviation of the movie from the book quite unsettling.

‘Quality is remembered long after price is forgotten.’
—Aldo Gucci

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