1 minute read
GUCCI
from Empty Magazine
by AAAhuy
As two weeks of digital fashion “shows” roll to credits, it’s the videos that capture the elusive quality of authenticity that stay with us. Some best practices: gritty can trump glam, process is everything, and designers often make for better content than models. We can all agree, I think, that the days of filming pretty people dancing in front of a camera and calling it a wrap are over.
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Gucci’s Alessandro Michele has never been an up-and-down the runway kind of designer. At his first resort show for the brand, held in New York back in 2015, models walked across a West Chelsea street before stepping inside the art gallery venue; it was a public-facing show before that was a thing. Last February, days before the coronavirus crisis broke out near Milan, he staged a show in the round that was spectacular and intimate at once. In retrospect, it looks rather prescient: In inviting the audience behind the scenes and exposing the backstage goings-on of the hair and makeup crews and model dressers Michele was celebrating the very things that we’re all missing so badly in COVID-19-time: human interaction, collaboration, being part of a receptive audience.
Ruminating on the pandemic that brought Gucci to this novel way of doing things, Michele said, “It’s a disaster. But it’s not only a disaster. It’s a huge sign of something not going the right way, a moment to be reborn.” A wild pig spotted on the streets of Rome became a lockdown totem for him, its presence there suggesting a much needed realignment. If nature can do it, maybe fashion can, too? Back in May Michele announced Gucci’s reduced show schedule, effectively canceling the far-flung destination shows of its past. This may be the brand’s last resort collection, but the name “Epilogue” might be a misnomer. The learnings of lockdown— the importance of his team, the value of feeling—will stick with him, he thinks. “It’s not just a way to close, but to say what we’ve done and put seeds of what will be in the next chapter. Yes, it could also be a beginning.”
