THE GUCCI-VERSE

Photography by Hubert CrabièresStyling by Riccardo Linarello 

No Rules Please, We Are Gucci

Gucci’s centenary falls at a strange time for fashion – and many other industries – as the business landscape takes in the wholesale changes caused by Covid-19. Nevertheless, Alessandro Michele and his team have been creating an enormous number of wildly creative projects, including experiences, capsule collections and concept spaces. So while the rest of the luxury fashion world slowly reawakens, Gucci has already got back up to speed and continued its never-ending reinvention. The Gucci 100 collection is the subject of this special story featuring Margo and Madelyn Whitley, riffing on all the house’s icons with a degree of deft humour, inspired by the culture of pop music.

Earlier this year, Gucci’s Aria collection presented a hack that brought Balenciaga and Gucci together and redefined the accepted wisdom for branding between luxury houses. The result allowed each house’s identity to pollinate the other and create a rich seam of creative possibility, an idea that has already been embraced – or should we say, copied? – by other brands. The Gucci experiment has torn up the industry's rulebook, while Gucci Circolo pop-up stores are the spaces that bring to life that insane form of brand wisdom.

Michele has curated a few of these pop-ups around the world, including one in London, as well as a new online store where young design talent is sold next to a specially chosen and repurposed selection of vintage Gucci. In this one idea, the house creates a platform to support, sustain and nudge, while using its huge power and influential voice to elevate the next generation of design talent. While other designers might pay lip service to the up-and-coming, in practice they are more likely to give smaller competitors a quick shove back down the stairs when no one is looking. With its recycling of clothing, the concept also moves the house towards genuine sustainability.

If you aren’t already exhausted by all this, as we go to press, Gucci is about to present its new collection in Los Angeles and sponsor the LACMA Art+Film Gala to honour Amy Sherald, Kehinde Wiley and Steven Spielberg. It’s an apt moment as House of Gucci – an unauthorised feature film about the brand starring Lady Gaga and Adam Driver – is set to bring the family saga of murder, revenge and greed to the silver screen.

Michele’s first collections represented such a paradigm shift that not too many people noticed that they were the foundations for a whole new philosophical and conceptual construct, a new era and a new system for the art and business of fashion. According to fashion’s old rules, hot was followed by not. But Michele and his boss, Gucci CEO Marco Bizzarri, have rewritten them to such an extent that Gucci will not be handing over its crown as the most successful and sought-after brand any time soon. At today’s Gucci, any centenary celebrations will involve spending far more time looking into the future than simply celebrating the past. ◉