The Monocle Minute

The game of designer musical chairs that has been taking place in the luxury-fashion industry over the past year is getting old. Yesterday, Gucci announced that its creative director, Sabato de Sarno, is stepping down after a mere two years in the job. This follows reshuffles at houses including Celine, Jil Sander, Givenchy, Dries van Noten, Bottega Veneta, Tom Ford and Christian Dior. The wave of change has even reached boardrooms. Earlier this week, Marco Gobetti, Ferragamo’s CEO, informed his staff that he’ll be departing, raising questions about the company’s future.

The flurry of announcements has whipped up the fashion press and industry professionals into a state of constant speculation: who will replace De Sarno? And who will be shown the door next? Some mutter that it’s probably often designers themselves who start rumours to influence the decisions of HR departments. There’s nothing wrong with a little guessing game, especially over a glass of wine with trustworthy colleagues – but are we missing the bigger picture? Perhaps the question that we should be asking is: why are these endless hirings and firings happening to begin with? Given the amount of collections that designers have to deliver every year and the disconnect between their creative direction and a brand’s merchandising or communication strategies, many aren’t being set up for success.

De Sarno was given the gargantuan task of rebranding Gucci and turning its fortunes around in less than a year, before his full collections even became available in shops. Still, he managed to create multiple hits for the Italian house, including the popular horsebit ballet flats, and revitalised Gucci’s signature Rosso Ancora colour, which has made its way into every brand’s collection this winter. More importantly, De Sarno shifted the focus back to the customer with designs grounded in reality: sharp outerwear, loafers and slim suits that you could keep in your closet for decades.

But clearly change didn’t come fast enough and his time at Gucci came to an abrupt end. For lasting success, brands need to rethink how they treat talent, make room for spontaneity and offer the incoming group of artistic directors the ultimate luxury: time.

Natalie Theodosi is Monocle’s fashion director. For more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe to Monocle today.

US foreign-aid funding around the world has already been halted under the Trump administration but, starting later today, thousands of staff from the development agency USAID will be put on leave. Andrew Natsios was head of USAID when George W Bush was president. He offers his reaction to the agency’s potential closure.

What is USAID’s most important function?
Food security is one of the most important issues for me. I’ve spent a lot of time in civil wars, famines and refugee emergencies. In these theatres, USAID is the dominant force in the world. About 40 per cent of the money spent internationally in humanitarian emergencies is spent by USAID.

What has been your impression of efforts to shutter USAID?
This whole process is completely chaotic. One of my former students has been with USAID for seven years. He said, “They just sent me a note. I’m in the middle of a civil war and I was told I was fired. I don’t even know how to get home now.” And second, the Trump administration didn’t study what USAID does. The young techies who are working with Elon Musk don’t understand development work or emergencies work. The career people at USAID are the most competent managers with the highest ethics. They’re not ideological and certainly not Marxist. So I’m a little fed up with listening to all this rhetoric from people who don’t know anything about the subject.

Why does USAID matter to US national security?
I’m a conservative Republican and I can say that USAID protects US national interests in several ways. For example, we have health programmes in 90 countries that act as an early-warning system for disease outbreaks. We have a huge global supply chain that’s highly efficient; we can move stuff within 48 hours, including vaccines. That whole system is shutting down because of these cuts. Why are we doing that? The notion that we can stop these diseases at our borders is delusional.

The skyline of Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul, is finally returning to form (writes Julia Lasica). After three long years of Isis occupation, during which the city’s architecture and historical artifacts were largely destroyed, a Unesco-led restoration of some of its most illustrious buildings, such as the 12th century Great Mosque of al-Nouri, was completed this week. Following Mosul’s liberation by Iraqi government forces in 2017, the UN body set about reconstruction works and raised €111m in funds from donors including the UAE and the EU.

The restoration involved working with the local community to salvage materials from the rubble and restoring structures using traditional-building techniques. International experts, specialists from the Tower of Pisa among them, were also called in to oversee the project. Now Unesco officials are reportedly turning their attention to Iraq’s similarly wartorn neighbour, Syria. But Homs-born architect and Oxford University research fellow Ammar Azzouz urges caution. “International organisations often come with their own agendas, deciding what to prioritise on behalf of communities,” he told The Monocle Minute. “And though rebuilding a mosque or a church might be seen as a ‘quick win’, our understanding of rebuilding should move beyond monuments and towards spaces that affect people’s everyday lives.”

The best way to get a sense of a city is to look at how it treats its least glamorous and lowest-visibility spaces. Take Australia’s laneways as an example: in bigger cities such as Brisbane and Melbourne these backstreets provide a more intimate route than the main roads. They may not boast panoramic views to rival Italian piazzas nor the grandeur of France’s boulevards but, for the better part of 30 years, players from both the private and public sector have been turning the nation’s slim thoroughfares into vibrant urban corridors. Here are five reasons why these laneways work well.

1. Putting people first
With limited vehicle access, laneways offer a place for comfortable walking and easy talking when out for a stroll. They highlight the value in getting rid of bollards and curbs in pedestrianised areas. Provide some good outdoor lighting – never too stark, just a warming glow – and you have yourself a spot that’s open enough for foot traffic but secluded enough for socialising.

2. Fine finishes
By investing in custom street furniture, signage and visually rich, tactile materials, alfresco drinking and dining looks even more appetising in these quieter passages. A laneway’s compact sense of identity draws in the curious.

3. Enliven lost space
To break the monotony of blank brick façades, laneways pique visual interest by inviting retail and small hospitality ventures, particularly cafés, to take up tenancy.

4. Mix up the offering
By combining residential use with retail and hospitality, laneways form corridors where like-minded businesses and tenants can come together.

5. Loosen the licence
Laneways can be destinations for fun and relaxation, particularly when licensing laws are eased and longer opening hours incentivised. Cheers to that.

We explore how keeping culture in mind when planning our cities can have effects beyond just arts-related improvements. The people behind The Routledge Handbook of Urban Cultural Planning tell us more. Plus: we visit a treasured museum in Lima and look ahead to some cultural institutions that are set to open in 2025.