Gucci projected its own history into the present day
Come September 2023, Sabato De Sarno will present his first collection as creative director of Gucci following the departure of Alessandro Michele in November last year. While we await his arrival and plans for the house (he’s transitioning from a design director position under Pierpaolo Piccioli at Valentino), it would have been easy for Gucci to put on a played-down, run-of-the-mill ‘interim’ show, as seasons like these are known in fashion terminology. Instead, the house came out swinging. Honouring the brand’s own history, the design team – some of whom have worked for Gucci for more than 20 years – created a high-spirited, emotional and above all fabulous collection that reflected their memories of the different eras and, indeed, fashion moments of the house in the contemporary mirror of the Y2K craze.
It celebrated all the people who work for Gucci
At Gucci’s headquarters on Via Mecenate, the house constructed a kind of hub-within-the-hub: a workplace forum of circular settings and seating areas that made up the show’s runway. It was an ode to the working environment of Gucci and the teams who bring it to life every day. The collection they created arrived in lifts, as if every look had travelled from ideation to realisation: from the archives that inform new ideas, to the studio where they are conceived, and the atelier where they materialise before finally hitting the runway. In an industry obsessed with creative directors, it was a nice reminder of all the individuals it takes to create a collection like this one, each of whom brings to the table their own inimitable talent and skill.
It combined the eras of Tom Ford and Alessandro Michele
Set to an evocative soundtrack mixed by Yasmina Dexter – Britney Spears’s lascivious beat from 2001’s I’m a Slave 4 U pumping prominently throughout the middle – the show unfolded like a memory bank recharged for the future. The design team reimagined the sexy, sophisticated silhouettes of Tom Ford’s era as creative director of the house from 1994 to 2004 (he worked there from 1990) through the exuberant colours and decoration of Alessandro Michele, who fronted it between 2015 and 2022, and whose time at the house hails back to Ford like so many members of the team. Playing to a current Y2K mania characterised by Ford for Gucci, it opened with a crystal-encrusted GG-logo bra styled with a distinctly late-‘90s pencil skirt: memories clear to many, but materialised in new form.
The cast personified the Gucci heritage
Gucci threw in Easter eggs along the way: Amy Wesson, Liisa Winkler and Guinevere van Seenus – who all walked for Gucci under Ford – put faces to the memories evoked through the garments. The wardrobe spanned the masculine tailoring, second-skin tops and pencil skirts of that era, with recurring elements of GG-embroidered lingerie for good measure. Through the sumptuous palette and opulent adornments characteristic of Alessandro Michele’s time at the house – electric colours, sparkling crystals, heirloom-like decorations – the collection drew a timeline through the ages of Gucci, climaxing in demi-couture evening dresses that were cut in the shape of hearts, a detail the house attributed to the teams that make up its heart. After the finale, those teams came out of the lifts in force. It was an emotional moment and one that felt well-deserved.
Accessories evoked the eras before Ford and Michele
The century-long history of Gucci does, of course, encompass more than Tom Ford and Alessandro Michele. But because the clothing history of the house prior to Ford isn’t as defined as that of houses like Saint Laurent or Balenciaga, clarifying the heritage of the house – in which this show was very much an exercise – has to start with the products, symbols and feelings people most associate with Gucci. This collection did that splendidly, with one leg firmly planted in the next chapter for the house. As for the eras that came before Ford and Michele, they were there in the accessories: the Jackie bag which appeared in a new softened construction in tactile materials, in the rounded trapezoid Chain bag adorned with the horsebit, in snow boots excavated from Gucci’s ski collection from the ‘60s, and some delectable square kitten-heel sandals that were ever so timeless.
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