Gucci | House Of

He wasn’t the dashing, golden-hued Rodolfo, the actor. He was the other one. Maurizio. Quiet. Bookish. He wore his glasses like a shield and his shyness like a tailor-made suit. Patrizia, the daughter of a trucking magnate with a social-climbing heart, saw not a shy man, but a locked door. And she had been born with a set of golden keys.

“You’re the one who doesn’t want to be a Gucci,” she purred, sliding into his orbit at a party. He flinched, caught. “I’d rather be an architect,” he admitted. She tilted her head, a panther studying a lamb. “And I’d rather be a star. We both want what we’re not.”

Milan, 1978. The air in the Gucci boutique on Via Montenapoleone smelled of opulence: rich leather, cold champagne, and the faint, powdery whisper of wealth. It was here that Patrizia Reggiani, a woman with eyes like cut glass and a laugh that filled every corner, first saw the man who would be her ruin.

March 27, 1995. Maurizio arrived at his Milan office, a glass-and-brass palace of his own making. He was carrying a music box for Paola. The morning light was pale, indifferent. As he climbed the three steps to the entrance, Savioni walked up behind him, calm as a man ordering a coffee.

The divorce papers arrived on a silver tray in 1991. Patrizia read them three times before the color drained from her face. “He can’t,” she whispered. “I made him.”

“Because,” she said, “my hands are too beautiful for such a thing.”