Greed, Glamour, Gucci Galore: A Family Tale

Sept. 17 -- Boardroom brawls; executives tossing thousand dollar handbags at each other in fury; boatyard exorcisms; high-speed motorcycle escapes across the Swiss border; a socially ambitious wife; and a hit man who leaves two witnesses to his crime.

It could have been a best-selling novel, although people might not have believed it.

But The House of Gucci: A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour and Greed is a true story based on years of reporting and interviews by author and journalist Sara Gay Forden.

Forden describes her new book as a combination of Dynasty and Wall Street complete with a tragic murder and stunning trial.

“I was always interested in literary journalism,” she said. “I didn’t want to write a novel or even pretend that I could. I wanted to write about the real world, but have the story read like a novel.”

It seems Forden got everything she wanted. Even Jackie Collins, Judith Krantz and Sidney Sheldon would have a hard time topping this one.

Yet it wasn’t the sensational, 1998 murder trial that drew Forden to the Gucci family saga. It was the ill-fated fashion heir Maurizio Gucci himself.

She became enthralled during his 1991 press conference “to present his great vision for re-launching Gucci.”

“He was so charismatic,” she said. “He had a contagious enthusiasm, he was handsome and looked like a movie star. He also had this great mission to bring back the luxury image of his family’s business because at the time it was no longer special to have a Gucci handbag. You could get them almost anywhere.”

A Darker Side

After the press conference, Forden — the Milan bureau chief and business correspondent for Women’s Wear Daily — started hearing that everything was going wrong for the struggling company.

Soon, she learned that company woes were usually family woes.

In terms of high drama in the world of fashion and finance, the Guccis were hard to beat.