Gucci

A Gucci women's piece is usually identified by its metal long before its label. The horsebit, two rings and a bar borrowed from riding tack, has sat across the front of the loafer for decades and now runs onto sandals, mules and boots; the woven green-red-green web stripe does similar work on a shoe upper or a strap. Both are house shorthand, and both are read at a glance.

Around them the women's world is deliberately louder than the codes themselves. Footwear moves between the flat, low-heeled loafer and lug-soled, platform and heeled versions of the same idea, while the clothing runs from sharp Florentine tailoring to printed silk, embellished knitwear and pieces built on the interlocking G. It is a house that treats its own archive as raw material, so a shoe can be severe or maximal and still read as the same label.