There was good news and bad news at Gucci. The good news was that the collection shown yesterday in the brand’s Milan HQ, transformed into a giant chartreuse velvet conversation pit, was full of the house’s hits: cleaner, zingier, and sexier than previous seasons, with plenty of the archive items that might be on your Vestiaire Collective wish list. The bad news is that this might just be a one-off, an interregnum collection designed by the existing design studio before the debut from the house’s incoming creative director, Sabato De Sarno fills the horse-bit-buckled loafers of Alessandro Michele. Sabato’s first collection will be shown in September, which makes AW23 — and don’t forget the upcoming Cruise show — sort of like the lost seasons. Neither here nor there, past nor future; these collections are floating in limbo, somewhere between two drastically different visions. But the show must go on, with as many celebrities as possible to help bolster the mood of uncertianty — this time, A$AP Rocky, Florence Welch, Julia Gardner, Dakota Johnson, the Måneskin foursome, Halle Bailey, and Chinese superstar Xiao Zhan, who drew the crowds of screaming teenagers outside.
For now, Gucci’s collections are being crowdsourced by the creative team in situ. After the show, the entire design team emerged from the elevators lining the space to a room full of applause and, looking at them, it was clear to see how young they were, which explains why there were so many references to Tom Ford’s Y2K-era Gucci. It’s what the kids are wearing. The show opened with a bold statement, perhaps inspired by Ford’s monogrammed groin campaign. An elfin-cropped model in a long black satin skirt, leather opera gloves and little more than a couple of rhinestone GG monograms covering her nipples. Not since the heady days of the 00s has Gucci looked so skimpy. Noticeably, for the first time in a long time, there were familiar faces on the catwalk — Amy Wesson, Guinevere Van Seenus, and Liisa Winkler all walked vintage Tom Ford runways.
Who can blame them? The 2000s is the era of the house that is currently flying off the shelves at resellers and secondhand stores all around the world. This was the sartorial equivalent to painting-by-numbers; giving us what they know we want, rather than what we don’t know we want yet. Boxes were ticked, sneakers were developed, and handbags were a key focus, if not entirely new. Case in point: the myriad iterations of blown-up oblong horse-bit bags, a rehashing of Tom Ford’s bestselling Borsa It-bag. During the show, the riff from Britney’s 2001 hit I’m a Slave 4 U was played on repeat. Read into that what you will.
For longstanding fans of the brand in more recent times, there were still plenty of Michelian staples: bright chubby faux fur coats, candy-shop styling, glittery monograms and gossamer sequined dresses, feathers galore, and shaggy-soled shoes. But whereas Alessandro’s collections sometimes felt like dressing-up boxes, this collection was instead much more streamlined, even pared-back at times. The silhouettes were leaner — svelte low-rise skirts with the tights peeping out of the waistbands, fastened by super-skinny horsebit belts became a recurring look. While it’s true that the collection was eccentric, to say the least, perhaps a result of being designed by an entire studio without an authoritative creative direction — there was definitely something for everyone. And maybe that’s the point. Not a fan of the brightly coloured chubby faux furs and layers of clingy neon mesh and low-rise pencil skirts? Perhaps you might find a boxy grey suit, a classic trench, a striped banker shirt and slouchy jeans more your style. While the collection had its moments of well-executed eccentricity, it made a case as to why fashion houses need designers to lead the way. A megabrand of Gucci’s size without direction can sometimes leave excessive logomania and archive re-editions feeling a little cold, or even just algorithmic.
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Images courtesy of Spotlight