MELLO, DAWN

COMPANIES AND ENTREPRENEURS ,   M

Dawn Mello was an American entrepreneur, the author of Bergdorf Goodman and Gucci’s relaunch

Dawn Mello was born in Lynn on the 5th of October 1931. Daughter of Anthony and Blanche Mello, her father was a mechanic, her mother a housewife. She studied in Boston at the Modern School of Fashion Design and in the 1950s she moved to New York to work as a model. At the end of the sixties she took over the management of the May Company and soon after she became director of fashion merchandising of the B. Altman department store. She worked alongside Ira Neimark, the store’s managing director. It was Neimark himself who, after taking over the management of Bergdorf Goodman stores in 1975, invited her to join him as fashion director.

BERGDORF GOODMAN’S RELAUNCH

The arrival at Bergdorf Goodman confirmed Dawn Mello’s success once and for all. Here she demonstrated all her foresight and entrepreneurial spirit by transforming Bergdorf into a world-class luxury emporium. Inside, she installed the first escalators and added sumptuous carpets. She worked on the image of the store, first changing its aesthetics and then also the advertising campaigns. Under Mello’s leadership, Bergdorf Goodman went from being a relic on the Fifth Avenue to a temple of high-end consumerism.

dawn mello from Bergdorf GoodmanDawn Mello from Bergdorf Goodman

DAWN MELLO TALENT SCOUT OF YOUNG TALENTS

She was one of the few women to achieve leadership positions in retail and it was during her years at the Bergdorf management that Mello brought young talents to the fore such as Donna Karan, Michael Kors, Azzedine Alaïa, Kate Spade, Calvin Klein, Jean Paul Gaultier, Christian Lacorix, Alber Elbaz and Tom Ford. Giorgio Armani’s success was also thanks to her, a designer who she trusted a lot making him known to the American public.

Donna Karan recalled one morning in the early 1980s when she saw the first collection on display in the windows of Bergdorf Goodman. She was stuck.

“I felt like Audrey Hepburn looking out the window in Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” she said. “I wouldn’t have been there, I wouldn’t be here now, if Dawn hadn’t been by my side.”

The fashion shows organized by Mello at the Bergdorf are legendary: for Jean Paul Gaultier’s American debut she created a show that costed $ 250,000. In the spaces of the department store, Mello recreated the atmosphere of Gaultier’s Parisian shop.

This is what she said about him, the future “enfant terrible” of fashion:

“He sees with different eyes. It’s rare to find a designer who is a visionary and at the same time so demanding in quality and detail. He designs for people who don’t want faded fashion”.

MICHAEL KORS

In the early Eighties when, running through a New York street, he noticed a well-dressed young window dresser setting up the window of a boutique. He asked him who had designed the window and the young man replied that it was him, alone. A few days later, the young man went to Mello’s office carrying a handful of clothes with him. She was struck by the young man’s talent and she decided to give him a small exhibition space in the store. The young boy was Michael Kors and that was the beginning of a story now known to everyone; another success story in Mello’s hands. Kors stated:

“She pulled me out of the darkness in a small boutique on 57th Street called Lothar’s and brought my collection to Bergdorf Goodman in 1981. She has supported me and many other new talents throughout her career.”

DAWN MELLO TO MICHAEL KORSDawn Mello and Michael Kors

ARRIVAL AT GUCCI

In 1989 Dawn Mello was called to the direction of Gucci. Maurizio Gucci, the 48-year-old president of the company, believed that Mello could use the same merchandising magic used for Bergdorf Goodman to revive the family brand. In fact, the Gucci brand had been plagued by family scandals and a not very glamorous aesthetic. Excessive expansion, reckless licensing of the name and counterfeit products were making Gucci an increasingly bad taste brand. As creative director, Dawn Mello moved the company headquarters to Florence and appointed Florentine artisans to renovate, tone down and update products, including bags with bamboo handles and moccasins with piping. In this way he restored Gucci’s luster and its aura of exclusivity. The response from the customers was immediately surprising.

A key passage in the history of Gucci that too often is not remembered, just as it was not remembered in the movie House of Gucci. Before Tom Ford’s sexiness and Domenico De Sole’s brilliant management, Dawn Mello was the true architect of Gucci’s rebirth from the ashes of its heirs.

She herself called a young Texan, Tom Ford, to the creative direction. Dawn Mello hired Ford following the advice of her partner, writer and editor Richard Buckley who later became Tom Ford’s life partner.

In 1994, she left Italy and Gucci to return to the direction of dear Goodman. In 1999 she founded her consulting company Dawn Mello & Associates. She died in New York on the 16th of February 2020 at the age of 88.

MISS MELLO: THE LADY OF THE LIMELIGHT

Dawn Mello was credited with leading the Gucci relaunch and was among the first women to achieve success in retail. With her ash blonde hair and imposing height she has become a style icon, so much so that she has become an example for all the clients she has had to deal with during her career.

During the years at Gucci, it was said that:

Dawn Mello is doing for Gucci what Karl Lagerfeld did for Chanel, what Tina Brown did for Vanity Fair, what Lee Lacocca did for Chrysler.

Colleagues and friends attributed his success to a combination of intuitiveness and perfect timing. Dawn Mello during her brilliant career earned the title of Miss Mello; she made the most of her role of entrepreneur to give visibility to those who did not have it and rediscovered the beauty of things.

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