It's all about controlling your own label completely
, and trying to control as much of the market as possible. When De Sole, a former tax lawyer, took over at Gucci, he made his first job buying back control of the accessories licences. De Sole says licences don't work. Licences don't work for people like De Sole, people that have the cash to launch themselves on to the international market without help. For many others it remains a necessary evil. He applied the same business model to Yves Saint Laurent. When he bought YSL it had 167 licences. At the same time he took YSL he took Sergio Rossi. Not really for the , you understand, but for the production expertise. Now, most of the that come from the Gucci stable will be produced in the Sergio Rossi factory.