Plot
In Italy in 1978, Patrizia Reggiani is the office manager of her father's small trucking firm. At a party, she meets Maurizio Gucci, a law student and heir to a 50% interest in the Gucci fashion house through his father Rodolfo. Patrizia aggressively pursues the awkward Maurizio, charming him into a romantic relationship.
Rodolfo warns Maurizio that Patrizia is after only his wealth, and tells him that he will disinherit him if he marries Patrizia. Maurizio chooses Patrizia over his connection to Gucci, leaving the family. Patrizia and Maurizio marry, and he is hired by the trucking company.
When Patrizia becomes pregnant, she considers her child to be an avenue for familial reconciliation, and lets that information slip to Maurizio's uncle Aldo, who is delighted and takes the couple under his wing.
Aldo introduces Patrizia to his eccentric son Paolo, who aspires to be a designer within Gucci despite his apparent lack of talent. Aldo helps Maurizio and a terminally ill Rodolfo reconcile shortly before the latter's death. Rodolfo returns Maurizio to his will, but, before he dies, fails to sign the document bequeathing to him the 50% interest in Gucci shares, so Patrizia forges Rodolfo's signature on Rodolfo's updated testament.
Patrizia devises a plot to obtain a controlling interest in Gucci by acquiring some of Aldo's and Paolo's shares (the other 50%). She clashes with Aldo over the firm's clandestine sale of cheap "fake" Gucci products on the black market, and consults Giuseppina "Pina", a psychic, for guidance on how to manipulate Maurizio, who has little interest in Gucci, into taking a more active role within the company.
Paolo acquires proof that Aldo has been evading taxes in the United States. He gives the info to Patrizia in exchange for her promise that he be allowed to design his own product line. Aldo is arrested by the IRS and sentenced to a year and a day in prison.
Patrizia lies to the Italian police and tells them that Paolo is not authorized to use the Gucci trademark, so they stop his fashion show by force. Patrizia and Maurizio ask Paolo to sell his shares to them, but he rebuffs and cuts ties with them.
Italian police search Maurizio's, attempting to arrest him for forging Rodolfo's signature. His family flees to Switzerland, where Maurizio meets his old friend Paola Franchi. After an argument between Maurizio and Patrizia, he decides that he is tired of his wife's influence on him and the company. He orders his wife and daughter to return to Italy, and begins an affair with Paola, which Pina senses.
When Maurizio's business plans harm the company, he seeks assistance from investment firm Investcorp, through which he hatches a scheme to acquire shares of the company from a now-impoverished Paolo. Aldo returns from prison and immediately realizes what Paolo has done. When Investcorp offers to buy out Aldo, he refuses until Maurizio reveals himself to be the deal's instigator. Dejected, Aldo sells the shares and cuts contact with Maurizio.
Patrizia attempts a reconciliation with Maurizio, but he flatly ignores her. He soon asks her for a divorce through his longtime assistant Domenico De Sole, a request that she refuses. Maurizio recruits up-and-coming designer Tom Ford to revitalize the company's image through a new line. His products are successful, but Maurizio has so thoroughly mismanaged the company that, by 1995, Investcorp's leaders feel compelled to buy him out, replacing him with Tom and Domenico.
Patrizia eventually grows so furious with Maurizio that she asks Pina to help her assassinate him, so Pina puts her in contact with two hitmen. A few days later, they shoot Maurizio to death in broad daylight outside his office.
Patrizia takes her husband's last name while announcing herself in court, indicating that she still considers herself to be a Gucci, even if the law does not.
Patrizia, Pina and the hitmen are sentenced to long prison terms following their arrests for murder. Aldo dies of prostate cancer in 1990, and Paolo dies in poverty shortly following the sale of their shares to Maurizio. Gucci is fully acquired by Investcorp, and continues to be successfully managed. No Gucci family members remain at the company.
