Created by Matt Zoller Seitz
Directed by Judith Carter
“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”
Haruki Murakami
NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE from director Ridley Scott, starring Lady Gaga and Adam Driver
Who killed Maurizio Gucci? Discover the sensational true story of murder, madness, glamour, and greed that shook the Gucci dynasty–and inspired the blockbuster film.
“A riveting account ... has the holding power and pace of an engaging novel.” —Bloomberg
On the morning of March 27, 1995, four quick shots cracked through Milan’s elegant streets. Maurizio Gucci, heir to the fabulous fashion dynasty, had been ambushed, slain on the steps to his office by an unknown gunman. Two years later, Milan’s chief of police entered the sumptuous palazzo of Maurizio’s ex-wife, Patrizia Reggiani—nicknamed “the Black Widow” by the press—and arrested her for the murder.
Did Patrizia kill her ex-husband because his spending was wildly out of control? Did she do it because he was preparing to marry his mistress? Or is it possible Patrizia didn’t do it at all?
The Gucci story is one of glitz, glamour, and intrigue—a chronicle of the rise, near fall, and subsequent resurgence of a fashion dynasty. Beautifully written, impeccably researched, and widely acclaimed, The House of Gucci is a page-turning account of high fashion, high finance, and heartrending personal tragedy.
“A business book you will zip through like a novel. ... Forden has whipped up a mixture of family drama and high finance into a tasty and complex narrative.” — The Economist, "A Best Book of the Year"
“Racy, fast-paced. … Reads like a movie script. … Hard to put down. ... Forden gets that famous Gucci bar-and-bit between her teeth —and gallops along.” — International Herald Tribune
“A penetrating chronicle of the rise and fall of a family business. ... Even by the Borgia-like standards of the fashion industry, the operatic Guccis were special. Not content with the usual familial stew of love, jealousy and greed, they added tax evasion, bigamy and, yes, murder to the mix.” — Wall Street Journal
"Riveting reading." — Cosmopolitan
“A riveting account of the talent and creative chaos that built one of the world's great luxury-goods empires--and the egotism, bitter family conflict, and incompetence that nearly destroyed it." — Bloomberg
"Fashion has never been so dramatic—and dangerous. The saga of three generations of the Gucci family opens with an execution-style murder in Milan and penetrates the world of one of the hottest fashion labels of our time. Fashion insider Sara Forden spins the tale of how a bunch of greedy, bickering Guccis lost control of the empire that made GG synonymous with loafers." — Teri Agins, author of The End of Fashion
"Glamour, greed, sex, style, and very, very good leather goods -- what more can you ask for (besides a 30 percent discount)?" — Michael Gross, bestselling author of Model and 740 Park
Did Patrizia Reggiani murder her ex-husband, Maurizio Gucci, in 1995 because his spending was wildly out of control? Did she do it because her glamorous ex was preparing to marry his mistress, Paola Franchi? Or is there a possibility she didn't do it at all?
In this gripping account of the ascent, eventual collapse, and resurrection of the Gucci dynasty, Sara Gay Forden takes us behind the scenes of the trial and exposes the passions, the power, and the vulnerabilities of the greatest fashion family of our times.
Sara Gay Forden covered the Italian fashion industry from Milan for more than 15 years, chronicling the explosion of labels including Gucci, Armani, Versace, Prada and Ferragamo from family ateliers into mega brands. She is now based in Washington, D.C. with Bloomberg News, leading a team that covers lobbying and the challenges faced by big technology companies such as Amazon, Facebook and Google.
MZS.Press is the online arts bookstore founded by author, critic, and filmmaker Matt Zoller Seitz and directed by Judith Carter. It offers new, used, signed, collectible, and rare books on film, TV, music, photography, and the visual arts. The store was launched in 2019 on a different platform and has expanded to incorporate arts books published by MZSPress's private imprint: titles currently include Seitz's The Deadwood Bible: A Lie Agreed Upon and Dreams of Deadwood, about the HBO Western, and Walter Chaw's A Walter Hill Film.
Our deepest wish is to promote, encourage, and distribute work by small presses, academic presses, and individuals. Extraordinary work tends to get swallowed up on giant platforms like Amazon and Barnes & Noble. The store's inventory of nearly 1000 volumes is currently in the process of being reconstructed after its relocation from Cincinnati, Ohio, to Dallas, Texas. The titles featured here are personally selected by a group of curators and advisors, including Seitz, Carter, and an array of critics, artists, journalists, educators, publishers, and arts mavens who are known for their ability to suss out what Seitz's jazz musician dad liked to call "the good sh*t."
"I feel comfortable using legal jargon in everyday life... I object!" Alicia Silverstone as Cher Horowitz in Legally Blonde, 2001
Matt Zoller Seitz
Critic, Author, Filmmaker, MZS Press Creator
Matt Zoller Seitz is the Editor at Large and film critic of RogerEbert.com; Features Writer for New York Magazine and Vulture.com, Contributing Writer for D Magazine and Texas Highways as well as finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism. His writing on film and TV has appeared in Sight and Sound, The New York Times, Salon.com, The New Republic and Rolling Stone. Seitz is the founder and original editor of the influential film blog The House Next Door, now a part of Slant Magazine.
Seitz has written, narrated, edited or produced over a hundred hours’ worth of video essays about cinema history and style for The Museum of the Moving Image, Salon.com and Vulture, among other outlets such as Texas Highways and AARP. His five-part 2009 video essay Wes Anderson: The Substance of Style was spun off into the hardcover book The Wes Anderson Collection. This book and its follow-up, The Wes Anderson Collection: Grand Budapest Hotel were New York Times bestsellers.
Other Seitz books include the New York Times bestsellers The Sopranos Sessions and Mad Men Carousel; TV (The Book), The Deadwood Bible: A Lie Agreed Upon, and The Wes Anderson Collection: The French Dispatch. He is also an interviewer, moderator, and film programmer who has curated and hosted film and TV presentations for the Museum of the Moving Image, IFC Center, San Francisco's Roxie Cinema, and other venues. He has launched a Dallas extension of his MZS Film Series at the historic Texas Theater. On October 3-6, 2024 he brought the legendary filmmaker Oliver Stone back to Dallas for a historic return to the city and the Texas Theatre!
Judith is quoted as saying "his hobbies include exotic dancing, moonwalking, and affixing masking tape labels to every food item in the refrigerator, including eggs. Oh and he has the attention span of a gnat." MZS agreed to it all except the moonwalking.