The Artist Who Drew Gucci's Most Iconic Scarf in a Single Night

The Gucci Flora motif — originally commissioned in 1966. Image: Kering / Gucci Archive.

It was 1966. Rodolfo Gucci needed a gift — immediately — for Princess Grace of Monaco, who had just walked into the Milan boutique. The house had no silk scarves. So Rodolfo called on Vittorio Accornero de Testa, the Italian artist who had been quietly designing textiles for Gucci since 1960. Accornero reportedly conceived and completed the entire composition in a single night. The result was the Gucci Flora: one of the most replicated, collected, and revived prints in luxury fashion history.

The Artist: Vittorio Accornero de Testa (1896–1982)

An archival Gucci scarf by Accornero de Archival Pieces · Iconic Style · Vintage GucciTesta, showing his signature botanical precision. Image: SHOWstudio.

Born in Casale Monferrato, Accornero was a man of many worlds. A WWI pilot turned illustrator, he worked under the pseudonym Max Ninon, contributing to L'Illustrazione Italiana and illustrating over 60 books. He designed sets and costumes for Teatro alla Scala — Puccini, Wagner — and later became a hyperrealist painter. When he joined Gucci, he brought all of it: the draftsman's hand, the theatricalist's eye for drama, and a naturalist's obsession with botanical detail.

Over a 21-year collaboration he designed approximately 80 scarves for the house, and was named a Gucci Knight of Labor in 1981. He remains, remarkably, one of fashion's best-kept secrets.

The Design: Botticelli, Burgundy & 37 Silk Screens

The Flora scarf was a radical departure from Gucci's equestrian world. Accornero drew on Botticelli's Primavera — the Renaissance allegory of spring, and a tribute to Gucci's Florentine roots — to create a composition of between 27 and 43 species of flowers, insects, and plants: lilies, irises, poppies, anemones, butterflies, dragonflies, beetles. No pattern repeats. Every flower is observed, not invented. Printers in Milan required up to 37 individual silk screens to reproduce it faithfully.

"The original drawings have never been found. Over 300 versions exist in the Gucci Archive — and still, no one knows where the originals are."

Among the most prized variations is the Floral Bourgogne: the Flora composition set against or bordered in deep burgundy — a colourway that gives the scarf an entirely different character. Where the white version is airy and painterly, the Bourgogne is rich, almost jewel-like. It is, today, one of the most sought-after vintage Gucci scarves on the archival market.

The Gucci Flora in burgundy — one of the most collectible vintage colourways. Via Net-a-Porter.

Why Now? Gucci's 2026 Revival

Gucci SS26 "La Famiglia" — the Flora print reappears on a waisted gown. Image: Haute Living / Gucci.

Under creative director Demna, the Flora motif has come roaring back. His SS26 debut collection, La Famiglia, featured Flora on a waisted gown with dramatic leg-o'-mutton sleeves. His FW26 show, Primavera — a deliberate nod to the Botticelli original — placed a Flora-print silk slip dress at the heart of his first physical Gucci runway. Meanwhile, the house launched The Art of Silk, Part 2: a heritage initiative for which Demna personally selected ten archival scarves for contemporary reinterpretation.

The message from Florence is clear: the Flora is not a throwback. It is the house's present tense.

At Re:Velvet, we currently have the Gucci Floral Bourgogne silk carré — a vintage piece in red, in exceptional condition. A hand-rolled 90cm square of pure silk twill, signed V. Accornero. The kind of piece that Demna is putting back on runways, now available without the 2026 price tag — and without the wait.