PATRICIA GUCCI wrote about her childhood,
her mother BRUNA PALOMBO, and her parents relationship in her book,
"In The Name of Gucci."
She has done well,after some soul searching, as the
acknowledged love child of ALDO GUCCI.
Image from Google Images and appears in the book which is C Patricia Gucci.
ALDO GUCCI, MISTRESS BRUNA PALOMBO, and their daughter PATRICIA
BRUNA PALOMBO's story is that of the CLASSIC MISTRESS, the woman who becomes the Mistress of a successful older man when she is young and is financially secure and cared for, for the rest of her life. She never needs to have another man for all the years that this man is alive and she is financially cared for beyond his death. She is very much like a traditional wife in that way. She doesn't have much experience in relationships with men prior to meeting him. She doesn't feel the need to seek other relationships, even when he does.
Bruna Palombo was seduced by Aldo Gucci, founder of the famous fashion house that specialized in shoes, luggage, carry bags, and accessories, when he was her boss and she was a youthful virgin with a fiancée. She was raised to be a proper Italian girl who would go along with the usual plan of loyalty and faithfulness to just one man but there were red flags that her relationship with her fiancée had been played out and would not result in happiness.
Her mother suspected something was going on between her daughter and Aldo while she was still living at home. Maybe it was the occasional expensive and fine gift she had been given that she brought home. Bruna's father had died. Perhaps it was pragmatic of her mother to not protest too much either when it became clear she would not marry her fiancée and be with Aldo instead.
Instead of marriage, which he could not offer her since he already was married to his first wife, Olwen Price, with whom Aldo and had three sons, Aldo offered Bruna the next best thing, to be his Mistress. Not long after this he predictably retired her.
Aldo established a second household and family with Bruna in Britain, where their only child, daughter Patricia, went to school. He was sure to visit them as much as possible, which was generally about once a month for a long weekend. Patricia says that they were so happy during his visits, but between those visits they just went on with their daily lives, a mother and daughter alone, without that happiness.
Aldo had a secret, and like many men who are the founders of families and family businesses, and are much older than their Mistress, there were employees who knew or suspected what was going on, who were sure to either accept this relationship of his or stay out of his private life. This was none of their business.
The day would come when his wife, the former Olwen Price, and first family, would have to accept things as they were, because Aldo acknowledged Patricia. He wanted to live more openly with Bruna. He wanted Patricia to meet her half brothers and slowly integrate this beautiful and intelligent daughter into the Gucci family business in some way, which he did as she reached adulthood herself and he expanded to America.(The sons were in their forties when Patricia finally met them.) As a teenager Patricia went to boarding school and spent summers with friends, so she and her mom were living separate lives. As an adult she felt she had been deprived of love as a child. She did move forward into becoming a Gucci public relations person, going to events to represent the Gucci company and her father.
Aldo Gucci had also seduced Olwen, in 1927 when she was working as a personal assistant to Princess Elizabeth of Romania, who felt obligated to protect her. It was the princess who had shown up in Florence, Italy to speak to Aldo's father, who had begun the Gucci empire as a small family business of leather luxury goods. His father considered him to be a womanizer and feared he would hurt the family reputation. Aldo married Olwen. ***
Patricia describes her mother Bruna as a gentle and perhaps fragile woman who did live for and around Aldo and who appreciated fine things but also hated, but endured, social people and parties. She was a private and retiring person, who I suspect was also depressed. Patricia turned out to be the more gregarious person, like her father, whose personality was very much a part of his success.
Olwen Price, Aldo's wife, was also a loyal and faithful Italian*** woman who did not want a divorce. Olwen seemed to be afraid to make an issue of Bruna, accepting that Italian men thought it acceptable to have a mistress. However, she did let Bruna know she knew about her and Patricia, that they were no secret to her. A go-between told Bruna it would be best if she turned Patricia over to Olwen's care. So Aldo separated the two women and families by establishing Bruna in England.
Patricia got her independence and lived apart from her parents. As an adult, she felt her mother had been unable to cope with raising her, that Bruna was dependent on Aldo for absolutely everything and rather helpless.
Eventually the plan was for Olwen to stay in Italy and for Aldo and Bruna to leave Britain and live together in Palm Beach, Florida. This they did. It was as if Bruna was his wife in America. He publicly referred to her as his wife there. He also managed to stage a marriage ceremony that was questionable.
In November of 1981, twenty five years after they first met, Aldo married Bruna in a hotel suite. He denied that he had married her to his sons. Meanwhile, Olwen fought for her marriage. Aldo found out his marriage to Olwen might be invalid but it was, so that invalidated this "marriage" to Bruna. "Someone went to England to obtain the marriage certificate there and seventy-three year old Olwen took it to Rome and recorded the document there." (197) Yet Bruna was not entirely without feeling for Olwen. She insisted that Aldo call her every Sunday and not neglect her. (Page 198)
For both Olwen and Bruna, who came to accept that they were man sharing and had very different relationships with him, it was the fact that Aldo had yet another Mistress that threatened to unsettle everyone's existence.
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Quick note here because this is such a popular post. I cannot contact people who claim relationship with the Gucci family, or Bruna Palombo, or Olwen's for genealogy - contact purposes. The book was written by a Aldo and Bruna's daughter. I suggest that you read her book for yourself and try to send her a letter via the publisher or her agent. Having some familiarity with genealogy in general, I can say that sometimes various stories come forth that are not in agreement. For the purposes of this blog, which explores the alternative lifestyle of Kept Women and Men, and so on, I select one or more books, read them cover to cover, and try to be judicious in my excerpts and note-taking. Sometimes I'm a bit more side-taking, questioning, or opinion-making in my narrative. I think the books I select are worth reading and that you may be interested in doing so too! I'm most often not in personal contact with the various persons I choose as subjects or the authors of the books. Missy
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August 2022: I'm currently reading, via audio book, THE HOUSE OF GUCCI. So far everything I've read is in agreement with this post. However I just moved a sentence up as a matter of editing and wish to note the following.
*** Olwen's nationality or ethnic heritage was English/British, however she had been living in Italy and would continue to do so, so she lived in Italian and Gucci family culture, in which the wife was/is generally faithful and loyal even if the husband is not. And while Bruna's nationality or ethnic heritage was Italian, Aldo had her and/or Patricia living in Britain (and sometimes America).
*** According to House of Gucci, Aldo and Olwen were about 21 when they married and their marriage soon became unhappy. It also says that Aldo had taken Bruna with him to New York when he started expanding to America by opening a New York store.
2 comments:
The info on Olwen Price is incorrect. She was from a welsh family. During the war she was a resistance fighter in I believe first France and then Italy. I know this because she was my father’s cousin. He met her and her father on an extended visit to Wales in the early fifties while she was visiting her father.
My information was taken from the book, I believe. Thank you for the correction. Missy
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