IT HAS BEEN A WEEK since the news broke that Frida Giannini, Gucci’s designer of the last 10 years, would leave the brand after her next women’s wear show, in February, and the speculation about who should take her place has only become more heated in the days since. (Should it be Riccardo Tisci of Givenchy? Joseph Altuzarra? What about Christopher Kane? Anthony Vaccarello? Thomas Tait? Or even — the weirdest one I’ve heard —the ex-Hermès designer Christophe Lemaire.)

What’s interesting, however, is that in all the who-ing and fro-ing, what hasn’t come up is just how pointedly Ms. Giannini’s departure reflects on current fashion industry wisdom, and the idea that what is needed right now are “clothes for real life.”

(And, yes, I know how ridiculous that sounds, since aren’t all clothes supposed to be made for real life? But in the context of a runway, it translates as less “made for marketing” — that is, eye-catching photo shoots — than “made for customers” — the sort of clothes you might wear every day without thinking.)

This approach, championed by Nicolas Ghesquière at Louis Vuitton and Hedi Slimane at Saint Laurent (and to a certain extent by Raf Simons at Christian Dior), places an emphasis on wardrobe — dresses, knits, slick jeans — and values relatively straightforward clothes over theme and narrative. It has been so apparently successful, both critically and commercially, that it was part of the stated reason for Marco Zanini’s recent departure from Schiaparelli, where, in obliquely discussing what was needed, the house said it was looking for a “contemporary spirit” — not a full-on ode to Elsa Schiaparelli’s Surrealist past.