SOMETHING extraordinary has come to be expected of each of Alessandro Michele’s collections for Gucci. Since becoming Creative Director in 2015, he has consistently delivered fresh fantasies, while working to explore the boundaries of the concept of the fashion show.
This season, Michele’s interest in the art of fashion presentation has coincided with the demand for innovation under the restrictions of Covid-19. Thus, Gucci’s latest collection is delivered to us through a kind of magical, cyber-fantastical livestream.
Gucci Epilogue collection
In his voiceover, Michele suggests the viewer might feel like a “peeping Tom”, for he has exposed the “mechanisms” of his presentation. The livestream spanned 12 hours, offering an undoctored insight into the shoot’s inner workings.
The lookbook is modelled by Gucci’s own designers, creating an intimacy between the clothes and their wearers. This echoes the feeling of Gucci’s isolation shoots: directed by their models and posted on Instagram, Michele’s post Covid work has invited viewers into the heart of the Gucci dreamland.
Here, the collection was presented via an ever-shifting moodboard of desktop windows: clips of models posing and photographs of looks, each post-it-noted with amendments and the designer’s role in the Gucci team. Isolated images of vegetables on the checkered background of photo editing software, and the discordant counting of a robotic voice accompanied each look. The viewer feels as if they have stumbled into the cyberspace manifestation of Michele’s vision.
The collection itself is boldly coloured and patterned. As ever, eyewear, scarves and hats adorned almost every model, contributing to the beautifully executed eclecticism associated with Michele’s work. The result is a heady, rainbow-coloured exploration of the joy of fashion, delivered through the kaleidoscopic lens of Michele’s inverted presentation.
Gucci Epilogue collection
by Connie de Pelet