Gucci's Alessandro Saddened By Plagiarism Accusations

Gucci´s creative director, Alessandro Michele, has responded to claims that the brand has plagiarised the work of Central Saint Martins student Pierre-Louis Auvray, telling the Business of Fashion, "It's something that makes me feel really sad."

The accusations centre on the Italian fashion house's alien video series, which it released on its social-media channels last week. BA student Auvray called out Gucci on his personal Instagram account, accusing the brand of a "blatant rip-off" concerning his designs. "I am just a student working hard on building my own stuff and the last thing we need as young creatives is to be ripped off," he wrote. An account run by students of CSM also uploaded an image of Auvray's work and a still from the Gucci short, telling its followers: "Look at both accounts and write below what you make of this. Wherever your influences come from, it is vital to credit. Young emerging designers and artists only have their ideas to trade."

Yesterday, Michele refuted the allegations, explaining that he wasn't aware of Auvray's work before this weekend. "It’s about my memories, so movies from the Seventies, including Star Trek: Lost in Space, that I saw many times. It’s more about space, we have the robots, the aliens... I tried to work with artistic director Chris Simmonds and the guys and photographer Glen Luchford on strong characters," he said, adding that the initial idea came to him months ago, as is required on such large Gucci campaigns.

"I’m so sad, because I think it’s not a good idea for a teacher at a school like this to push a young guy to destroy, in a way, his creativity," Michele continued, referring to the Instagram furore around the subject. "Creativity is not about the fame. I mean, it could be possible that you are thinking something that is in the mind of someone else. The idea that I’m 45 doesn’t mean that I have no creativity. I’m like a student, it’s the same, it’s not a war!"

Michele also said that he would be open to discussing the situation with Auvray directly.