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Gucci loafers are confirmed to be the shoes classic of the casual wear: we tell you their story and some curiosities of the most iconic models
What do Queen Elizabeth II, Jane Birkin and Dakota Johnson have in common? Gucci loafers, the classic ones with equestrian horsebit. Shoes that today we consider a classic of the female and male wardrobe but which by genealogy are born to dress casual. They are born as comfortable and informal shoes, because they are without laces and made in suede first and in soft leather after, particularly appreciated by the students of the 30s, becoming one of the symbols of the preppy style. In Europe they spread after 1926, when King George VI commissioned comfortable shoes (precisely without laces) to wear in his country residence.
It was not, therefore, Gucci who created the moccasins, but the history of these shoes since 1953 is inextricably linked to the maison with the double “G”, thanks to a small detail. From that moment they have become a cult piece, a model loved by celebrities and royals, as well as proposed in many colors (including bright) and materials (even unpublished).
The revolution of black horsebit moccasins
It is 1953 and Aldo Gucci, son of the founding father Guccio Gucci, has the ambition to expand the market of the family business overseas. The trip to New York turns out to be enlightening: he notes that many of the American upper class wear comfortable moccasins and so, back in the Italian headquarters, he decides to enter the world of footwear starting from this model. It is a pair of informal and practical shoes that represent an approach to fashion sensitive to the needs of a modern society that is changing its lifestyle. What will make Gucci women’s and men’s loafers iconic, i Jordaan, it will be an equestrian clamp (a small horse bit, baptized Horsebit) placed on the instep.
