Dresden

. As of 2004, the Gucci Group maintained whole or partial interests in the following companies or brands:. Moreover, Dresden hosts many world-class research institutes:. Using the capital obtained from the PPR issue, the Group has steadily expanded beyond just the Gucci brand through a series of takeovers. Dresden is home to a number of renowned universities:. Giannini's Spring 2006 collection was lauded for its color and energy, recreating the buzz around the company's ready-to-wear that was first heard after Ford's 1995 season. Between five and eight thousand Neo-Nazis took part, mourning for the victims of what they call the Allied bomb-holocaust (German: Alliierter Bombenholocaust). 32-year-old Giannini, who had been responsible for designing men's and women's accessories, currently serves as Creative Director for the entire brand.

In 2005, Dresden was host to the largest Neo-Nazi demonstration in the post-war history of Germany. Ray served as Creative Director of Menswear for three years before resigning in January 2006, citing his inability to create a consistent image for Gucci during his time as head designer. Affiliated with the radical right National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD), they cite the bombing of Dresden in order to portray Germans as the real victims of the Second World War, and try to take advantage of anti-American sentiment to do it. Facchinetti was elevated to Creative Director of Womenswear in 2004 and designed for two seasons before leaving the company after a management dispute. In recent years, however, right-wing extremist skinheads have tried to instrumentalize the event for their own political ends. Following Ford's departure, Gucci Group retained three designers to continue the success of the company's flagship label: Alessandra Facchinetti, Frida Giannini, and John Ray, all of whom had worked under Ford's creative direction. Since reunification, the tone of the ceremonies has taken on a more neutral and pacifist tone. In 2005, Tom Ford began designing a line of cosmetics for Estee Lauder, and planned to launch his own line of ready-to-wear and accessories under a Tom Ford label.

Similar ceremonies held during the period of communism were specifically directed at demonizing the Western Allies, above all the United States. The announcement of his departure led to a complete presale of many items in New York department stores, and waitlists for his last accessories formed just days after the collection showed in Milan. Every year on February 13, the anniversary of the major British fire-bombing raid that destroyed most of the city, tens of thousands of demonstrators gather to commemorate the event. His collection for Yves Saint Laurent followed the lead of the previous season’s Gucci women’s wear, with form fitting kimonos and Asian patterned dresses, while the menswear collection featured classic-looking tuxedos and smoking jackets. Dresden remains a major cultural epicenter of historical memory, owing to the city's destruction in World War II. Ford priced up the ready-to-wear and used exotic fabrics like alligator and boar hide. In 2004 the United Nation's cultural organization UNESCO declared Dresden and the surrounding section of Elbe river valley to be a "World Heritage" site. Print advertisements featured models in sleek, simple gowns inspired by the glamour of 1920s silent film stars.

Disaster relief for the millennial flood came from around the world. Ford’s last show for Gucci returned to the roots of his first successful collection: the culture of celebrity. The destruction from this “millennium flood” is no longer visible, due to the rapidity of reconstruction. After a failed attempt at contract renewal with PPR in 2003, Tom Ford and Domenico de Sole decided to take their leave from Gucci Group. In 2002, torrential rains caused the Elbe to flood 9 m past its 1845 record height, damaging many landmarks (See 2002 European flood). The second largest shareholder is Crédit Lyonnais with 11%. Volkswagen is currently manufacturing its Phaeton car model and the Bentley "flying spur" model at a modern factory located in central Dresden, delivered by city tramway. PPR now owns 68% of the group.

The city has also attracted many new firms to the region (including AMD, Motorola, net-linx, Toppan Photomasks, Infineon Technologies, and Airbus Industries). Courts in the Netherlands ultimately upheld the PPR deal, as it did not violate that country's business laws. Many of the industries that made Dresden rich before the Second World War and disappeared under communism have resettled in the city including the optical industry, the high quality foodstuffs industries, and the watchmaking industries (including the Glashütte brand). Arnault’s share was diluted to a paltry 20%, and a legal battle ensued to challenge the legitimacy of the new Gucci-PPR partnership. Dresden as a major urban center has developed much faster and more consistently than most other regions in the former East Germany, but the city still faces many social and economic problems which stem from the collapse of the communist system, including high unemployment levels. Francois Pinault, the company’s founder, agreed to the idea and purchased 37 million shares in the company, or a 40% stake. After 1990 a completely new law and currency system was introduced in the wake of Communism’s downfall, and eastern Germany's infrastructure was largely rebuilt with funds from western Germany. He also approached French holding company Pinault-Printemps-Redoute (PPR) about the possibility of forming a strategic alliance.

East Germany had been the richest Communist country but was faced with competition from western Germany after reunification. De Sole reacted by issuing new shares of stock in an effort to dilute the value of Arnault’s holdings. In 1990 Dresden--an important industrial centre of East Germany--had to struggle with the economic collapse of the Soviet Union and the other export markets in eastern Europe. Domenico De Sole was incensed by the news and declined Arnault’s request for a spot on the board of directors, where he would have access to Gucci’s confidential earnings reports, strategy meetings, and design concepts. The urban renewal process in Dresden will continue for many decades but public and government interest remains high and there are numerous large budget projects underway - both historic reconstructions and modern plans - that will continue the city's recent architectural renaissance. In 1999, LVMH staged an effort to acquire Gucci Group through a creeping takeover, purchasing 34.4% of the company’s stock. Despite the inner city’s almost total destruction in World War II, many areas in the central city have been restored to their former glory. Arnault jumped at the chance.

The new Frauenkirche was rebuilt according to historical drawings and photographs and is now open to public service since Reformation Day 2005. Realizing that his company didn't have the assets to execute the takeover, Prada’s Patrizio Bertelli offered to sell the shares to someone who could: Arnault. It was completed in 2005, a year before Dresden's 800th birthday. Prada, in an effort to replicate LVMH's success at consolidation, had purchased a sizeable stake in Gucci Group in an ill-fated attempt to take over the company. The church, once the city's symbol and considered the world's finest Protestant church, was rebuilt following German reunification in 1991 from the remaining pile of rubble of the original church's ruins thanks to private and corporate donations. Four years later, he sorely regretted that decision. The most important urban renewal/reconstruction project was the reconstruction of the Frauenkirche (“Church of Our Lady”) and the surrounding Neumarkt district. Arnault balked at the $500 million price tag and was unsure that Gucci could ever be revived.

The city still has many of its wounds from the bombing raids of 1945 but Dresden has undergone significant reconstruction in recent years. Just before Gucci Group’s IPO in 1995, Investcorp approached LVMH chairman Bernard Arnault with a proposition to sell him the entire Gucci brand, including its lucrative watch and fragrance divisions. Dresden has experienced dramatic changes since the reunification of Germany in the early 1990s. In the late 1990s, Gucci became mired in a standoff with one of fashion's biggest conglomerates, LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton. Local activists and residents, joined in the growing civil disobedience movement spreading across East Germany by staging demonstrations and demanding the removal of the undemocratically-elected communist government. It issued further shares in 1996. On 3 October 1989, (the so-called “battle of Dresden”), a convoy of trains carrying East German refugees from Prague passed through Dresden on its way to West Germany. Gucci Group became a publicly traded company in 1995, incorporated in the Netherlands, and listing on the New York and Amsterdam Stock Exchanges.

Among East Germans, Dresden also earned the nickname "the valley of the clueless" because the city's location in a valley prevented its residents from watching West German TV, an illegal but popular pastime among East Germans. By his third collection, it became clear that the highly suggestive advertisements and scanty clothing were not passing fads at the generations-old fashion house, but rather the attribute that would set Gucci apart from its competitors. However, many of the bombed-out ruins of churches were razed by Soviet authorities in the 1960s instead of being repaired. The defining characteristic of Ford’s work was what came to be known as the “Gucci sex factor.” His spring 1996 collection, which was reminiscent of the flower child fashions of the early and mid-1970s, continued Ford’s signature trend of sky-high hemlines and plunging necklines. Many important historic buildings were rebuilt, although the communists leaders of the city chose to reconstruct large areas of the city in a bland socialist modern style for economical and ideological reasons, namely to break away from the city's past as the royal capital of Saxony and a stronghold of the German bourgeoisie. People Magazine called him one of the 50 most beautiful people of the year. After the Second World War, Dresden became a major industrial center in socialist East Germany with a great deal of research infrastructure. He graced the pages of entertainment and fashion magazines alongside advertisements that featured his company’s sexy new look.

The comradery is deeply supported by the populace in both cities. Practically overnight, Ford became one of the most celebrated new stars in entertainment. Today Dresden has a strong partnership with the English city Coventry, which was heavily damaged by German air attacks. Gucci’s warm reception among the glitterati had an unintended side effect: the elevation of Tom Ford from designer to sex symbol. Fortunately, much of the city's beauty has been restored, thanks to the zeal of the populace in recreating the architecture of ‘old Dresden'. Image:Gucci2.jpg. Others see it as a necessary military action taken to support the Red Army. In the years that would follow, nearly every major celebrity in Hollywood came to Ford for formalwear on awards night, and celebrity sightings once again became commonplace in the company’s boutiques.

While some think that the bombing of Dresden was a tragic occurrence that Nazi Germany brought upon itself, others feel it should be treated as a war crime. Celebrities, fashion models, and wealthy young patrons around the world were clamoring for pieces from the new collection. It states definite figures of between 18,000 and 22,000 with estimates of final numbers of 25,000 and includes the interesting sentence "Since rumours far exceed the reality, open use can be made of the actual figures.". Soon thereafter, Gwenyth Paltrow graced the red carpet in the season’s signature look, a red crushed velvet tuxedo with an unbuttoned blue dress shirt, and British actress Elizabeth Hurley donned that season’s patent leather spiked boots to a movie premiere. "TB47" is probably a reasonable guide to the order of casualty numbers. In 1995, Madonna appeared at the MTV Video Music Awards to collect an award for “Take A Bow” in head-to-toe Gucci. The official "Final Report and Situation (TB47)" produced by Reich Commander of the Order Police a month after the bombings. While Ford’s 1995 ready-to-wear line was met with rave reviews by industry insiders, it was the celebrity following that would propel Gucci back to the top of the industry.

However the West German Federal Archive in Koblenz discovered a genuine copy of TB47. You just knew that wearing those clothes would make you look like you were living on the edge—doing it and having it all!". Many of the higher estimates are based on a fake TB47 report (which has been visibly altered). "The girls looked like they had just stepped off someone’s private jet. The entire inner city (15 square kilometres) was utterly devastated, and other quarters were damaged to some degree, the many villa quarters, however, on average much less than others. "It was hot! It was sex!" Joan Kaner, fashion director for Neiman Marcus, exclaimed. At that time, Dresden's population was 600,000, but up to 200,000 refugees were living in cramped apartments and passing through Dresden as the Russians were now only fifty miles away. The collection was reminiscent of the jet-set clientele that created a buzz around the label in the 1970s, with its unbuttoned silk shirts and tight velvet hip-huggers.

Numbers between 25,000 - 140,000 have been used in official statistics with the communist authorities of Dresden increasing their estimates across time; estimates in Nazi Germany by the Ministry of Propoganda varied between 350,000 and 400,000. Ford's 1995 ready-to-wear line for Gucci dazzled fashion critics. Civilian death estimates vary wildly largely as a result of propaganda figures which received widespread publicity at the time, however the most recently available evidence from Friedrich Reichart of Dresden City Museum points to 25,000 deaths, which is less than the number that died in Hamburg, but Dresden was a smaller city. But where Ralph Lauren embodied the WASP culture of New England, Ford created a lifestyle brand for the hedonistic, urban-dwelling fashionistas who emblemized the brand in years past. Although key industrial facilities were destroyed by the bombing (much of their capacity was quickly restored), the main goal of the "area bombing" was to create a fire storm (an objective inspired by the Luftwaffe's raids on Coventry, Bath and London but refined by Britain's Royal Air Force). Lauren, as Ford described, was “the only designer to really create an entire world… you know exactly what his people look like, what their houses look like, what kind of cars the drive,” a mantra he would adopt at Gucci years later. The Red Army was approaching from the East and Dresden was one of two key rail routes with marshalling yards. His scandalous advertisements made the brand synonymous with eternal youth and the mystery of adolescent sexuality.

However these targets were not the main reason for the city being bombed. Klein, much like Ford, was a “superstar designer,” the exemplar of his own brand: stylish, suave, and modern. Some 300 Jews were kept slave laborers at a camp in Dresden, of these the majority were killed before the war ended, along with almost all of the 6,000 Jews who lived in Dresden before the war (a famous survivor was Dresden native and writer Victor Klemperer). Ford had long been an avid follower of two of America’s top designers, Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein. These factories employed mainly local workers but also used Jewish slave labour. De Sole, who had been elevated to CEO, realized that if Gucci was to become a profitable company, it would require a new image, and so he agreed to pursue Ford’s vision. In addition many peacetime factories, such as the cigarette factories, had been converted to ammunition factories as part of the policy of "total war". Ford had worked for years under the uninspiring direction of Maurizio and Mellow and wanted to take the company’s image in a new direction.

Dresden's reputation for culture is better known than its highly developed optics industry (Carl Zeiss later Praktica), which produced precision aiming devices during the war. Dawn Mello returned to her job at Bergdorf Goodman less than a year after Maurizio’s departure, and the position of creative director went to Tom Ford, then just 32 years old. Evidence uncovered after the war shows that Germany's Anti-Aircraft batteries employed "a flak militia of Juveniles" (Führer-Order 20/90/42). He was forced to sell his shares in the company to Investcorp in August of 1993. Early in the war it had been considered too distant for the Allied bombers to reach in safety, but even when it had been bombed the majority of Dresden's anti-aircraft defences were redeployed elsewhere in Germany. His management had had an adverse effect on the desirability of the brand, product quality, and distribution control. The city was not particularly well defended, because as a European cultural center, lacking industry, it was not seen as militarily strategic. Maurizio was a charming man who passionately loved his family's business, but after four years most of the company's senior managers agreed that he was incapable of running the company.

However at the time Allied forces had only recently regrouped from a German counteroffensive. The company’s new accessories failed to pick up the slack, and for the next three years the company experienced heavy losses and teetered on the edge of bankruptcy. In hindsight it is clear that the end of the war was approaching. Maurizio riled distributors, Investcorp shareholders, and executives at Gucci America by drastically reining in on the sales of the Gucci Accessories Collection, which in the United States alone generated $110 million in revenue every year. Because the raging fires stopped at the river, the newer Neustadt ("new town") ironically became the older side of modern-day Dresden sustaining less damage. In the early 1990s, Gucci underwent what is now recognized as the poorest time in the company's history. The Altstadt ("old town") side of the Elbe River full of its historical cultural treasures was the most damaged, and left smoldering. Dawn Mello hired Ford in 1990 at the urging of his partner, writer and editor Richard Buckley.

It was carpet bombed on the early hours of Valentine's Day, February 13-14 1945. Raised in Texas and New Mexico, he had been interested in fashion since his early teens but only decided to pursue a career as a designer after dropping out of Parsons School of Design in 1986 as an architecture major. Dresden was not the only German city devastated by World War II bombing, but the bombing of Dresden in 1945 has become one of the most controversial events of that war. The last addition to the creative team, which already included designers from Geoffrey Beene and Calvin Klein, was a young designer named Tom Ford. Main article: Bombing of Dresden in World War II. At the helm of Gucci America was Domenico De Sole, a former lawyer who helped oversee Maurizio’s takeover of the company and the purchase of the company’s remaining shares by Investcorp, a Bahrain-based holding company between 1987 and 1989. The city has suffered repeated destruction: by fire in 1491, from bombardment by the Kingdom of Prussia in 1760, and during the suppression of the constitutionalist May Uprising in 1849 and the destructive Allied bombing raid of February 1945. In 1989, Maurizio managed to persuade Dawn Mello, whose revival of New York's Bergdorf Goodman in the 1970s made her a star in the retail business, to join the newly-formed Gucci Group as creative director.

In the early 20th century Dresden was particularly well-known for its camera works, such as Ihagee and Pentacon, which produced the Praktica , and the cigarette factories, one of which was in the impressive Yenidze, a building with a multicoloured glass roof shaped like a mosque which still stands today. The firm was named "European Company of the Year 1998" by the European Business Press Federation for its economic and financial performance, strategic vision as well as management quality. The city’s population quadrupled from 95,000 in 1849 to 396,000 in 1900 as a result of industrialization. The Gucci brand is considered one of the most frequently mentioned brands. The city also developed into an important center for the international sale of art works and antiques. A turnaround of the company devised in the late 1980s made Gucci one of the world's most influential fashion houses and a highly profitable business operation. During the 19th century, the city became a major center of industry, including automobile production, food processing, and the production of medical equipment. Maurizio sought to bury the fighting that had torn the company and his family apart and turned to talent outside of the company for Gucci’s future.

During the Napoleonic Wars the French emperor made it his base of operation, winning here a famous battle on August 27 of that year. (This action would later have a drastic impact on the outcome of the company’s dispute with the world’s largest luxury goods company, LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton.) Following the decision, the rest of the family left the company and, for the first time in years, one man was at the helm of Gucci. Between 1806 and 1918 it was the capital of the Kingdom of Saxony (which was from 1871 a part of the German Empire). Maurizio allied with Aldo’s son Paolo to gain control of the Board of Directors and established the Gucci Licensing division in the Netherlands for tax purposes. His son Frederick August II also reigned from Dresden as Augustus III of Poland from 1734-1763: during his reign the city was seat of a treaty that ended the Second Silesian War, and suffered heavy destructions in the Seven Years' War (1756-1763). Rodolfo’s death in 1983 caused a major shakeup in the company when he left his 50% stake in Gucci to his son, Maurizio Gucci. His reign marked the beginning of Dresden's emergence as a leading European city for technology and art. By the mid-1980s, when Aldo was convicted of tax evasion in the United States by the testimony of his own son, the outrageous headlines of gossip magazines generated as much publicity for Gucci as its designs.

He also gathered many of the best architects and painters from all over Europe to Dresden. Meanwhile, infighting was taking its toll on the operations of the company back in Italy: Rodolfo and Aldo squabbled over the Parfums division, of which Rodolfo controlled a meager 20% stake. Because he planned to make Dresden the most important royal residence, Augustus set out to discover the Chinese secret of porcelain (‘white gold’); under his rule, European porcelain was invented in Dresden and Meißen. It didn’t take long before counterfeiters ravaged the company’s pomp by flooding the market with cheap knockoffs, further tarnishing the Gucci name. From 1697-1706 and 1709-1733 Elector Frederick Augustus I ruled from Dresden as King August the Strong of Poland; the city is also known as Drezno in Poland. But by the 1980s, Gucci had lost its appeal, becoming a tacky airport brand.". From 1485 it was the seat of the dukes of Saxony, and from 1547 the electors as well. "In the 1960s and 1970s," writes Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter, "Gucci had been at the pinnacle of chic, thanks to icons such as Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly, and Jacqueline Onassis.

It was restoered to the Wettin dynasty about 1319. The newly-founded wholesaling business had brought the once-exclusive brand to over a thousand stores in the United States alone with the GAC line, deteriorating the brand’s standing with fashionable customers. After the death of the former, however, the city became property of the King of Bohemia and , later, the Margrave of the Brandenburg. Within a few years, the Parfums division began outselling the Accessories division. Since 1270, starting with Henry the Illustrious, Dresden became the capital of the margravate. Though the Gucci Accessories Collection was well received, it proved to be the destabilizing force that brought the Gucci dynasty crashing down. Founder of the city was Dietrich of Meißen, Margrave of Meißen. Aldo relegated control of Parfums to his son Roberto in an effort to weaken Rodolfo’s control of the overall operations of the company.

An ancient Slavic settlement known as Drežďany ("alluvial forest dwellers") on the northern bank of the river was joined in 1206 by a German town on the southern bank, the heart of the present day Altstadt (“old town”), while the Slavic part is called Neustadt ("new town"). GAC consisted of small accessories, such as cosmetic bags, lighters, and pens, which were priced at considerably lower points than the other items in the company’s accessories catalogue. Meißen is situated to the west of Dresden, most famous for the invention as well as production of European porcelain. In 1979, Aldo developed the Gucci Accessories Collection, or GAC, intended to bolster the sales for the Gucci Parfums sector, which his sons controlled. More east is Saxon Switzerland, a large prime climbing destination. At the time, brothers Aldo and Rodolfo controlled equal 50% shares of the company, though Aldo felt that his brother contributed less to the company than he and his sons did. In the northeast is the Bühlau quarter; in the east Kleinzschachwitz, another villa quarter. Gucci remained one of the premier luxury goods establishments in the world until the late 1970s, when a series of disastrous business decisions and family quarrels brought the company to the verge of bankruptcy.

Nearby, at a higher elevation, are the villages Bannewitz and Rundteil at the foot of the Erzgebirge mountains. Kennedy. The major sights of Dresden include:. President John F. The city now once again features a wealth of tourist attractions. At that time, the company also developed its famous GG logo (Guccio Gucci's initials), the Flora silk scarf (worn prominently by Hollywood actress Grace Kelly), and the Jackie O shoulder bag, made famous by Jackie Kennedy, the wife of U.S. Many of the city's greatest monuments were rebuilt in the decades following the war; this process was given new impetus and funding after the reunification of Germany in 1990. Gucci targeted the Far East for further expansion in the late 1960s, opening stores in Hong Kong and Tokyo.

The city area also reportedly had in some quarters the highest living costs in Europe before World War II. As the Gucci expanded overseas, board meetings about the company’s future often ended with tempers flaring and luggage and purses flying. The style of architecture that predominated under August I of Saxony is known as Dresden Baroque. Disputes regarding inheritances, stock holdings, and day-to-day operations of the stores often divided the family and led to alliances. Before the bombing raid of World War II, Dresden with its unmatched collection of baroque architecture was famous as one of the most beautiful cities in Europe. Even in Gucci’s fledgling years, the family was notorious for its ferocious infighting. The Großer Garten (“big garden”) is the largest urban park in the city. After Guccio's death in 1953, Aldo helped lead the company to a position of international prominence, opening the company’s first boutiques in London, Paris and New York.

In 2002 Dresden was listed as one of Europe's greenest (large) cities: a third of its area is covered by the forested areas called Dresdner Heide. Guccio and his wife Aida Calvelli had a large family, six children in all, though only his sons—Vasco, Aldo, Ugo, and Rodolfo—would play a role in leading the company. Because of its location in a relatively narrow river valley, Dresden's climate is much more characteristic of southern Germany and is considerably warmer than most other places in eastern Germany. During the 1950s, Gucci also developed the trademark striped webbing, which was derived from the saddle girth, and the suede moccasin with a metal bit. The Dresden University of Technology, is one of the world's oldest technical universities. In 1947, Gucci introduced the bamboo handle handbag, which is still a company mainstay. The city is often called the "Silicon Valley of Germany" because numerous computer hardware and hi-tech development firms have opened offices and research facilities in the region. Guccio was responsible for designing many of the company's most notable products.

Dresden is also an important center of the sciences and is home to many researchers. In 1938, Gucci expanded and a boutique was opened in Rome. Often seen as an important culture center, it is called the "Florence of the Elbe" (Elbflorenz in German) because of that. As a young man, he travelled to Paris and London, where he "gained an appreciation of cosmopolitan culture, sophistication, and aesthetics." Gucci opened his first boutique in the family’s native Florence in 1921 and quickly built a reputation for quality, hiring the best craftsmen he could find to work in his atelier. Unlike many large cities in Germany, which feature a clearly defined inner city, Dresden has several important centers of social and economic activity spread throughout the city's area. Guccio Gucci was the son of an Italian merchant from the country’s northern manufacturing region. About an hour northwest of Dresden is Leipzig, another big city in Saxony. Like many other high-fashion companies, Gucci began as a small, family-owned saddlery and leather goods store.

Dresden is located at 51°03′N 13°45′E, in the southeastern corner of eastern Germany; about two hours south of Germany's capital, Berlin, and about two hours north of Prague, capital of the Czech Republic. . . It was founded by Guccio Gucci (1881-1953) in Florence in 1921. Today, Dresden is an important cultural, political, and economic center in the Eastern part of the Federal Republic of Germany. Gucci, or the House of Gucci, is an Italian haute couture establishment. The controversial Bombing of Dresden in World War II and 40 years of GDR changed the face of the city dramatically. Bedat & Co (85%).

Dresden has a long history as capital and Royal residence for the Kings of Saxony with centuries of extraordinary cultural and artistic splendor. Watches