Back to the eighties
Gucci dazzles with all things shiny and a heavy dose of sequins at Milan Fashion Week.
GUCCI’S Alessandro Michele unveiled a loud and proud ode to the 1980s for its latest collection at Milan Fashion Week, with big bangs, square suits and enough sequins to drown a disco.
Michele burrowed further into his love for the bookish chic that has led the once-flagging house to white-hot success since he took creative control in 2015.
In a smoky near-darkness pierced by flashes of light, Gucci showed off a Spring/Summer 2018 collection that included plenty of large round glasses, satin, and even a striped and shiny track suit.
The idea guiding the show, according to Michele’s notes, is a refusal “to turn the page and stubbornly dwelling on a narration that consolidates on the beauty of the show”.
That meant a runway, best described as Atlantis on a foggy night, set among massive sculptures of some of humanity’s greatest symbols including a smiling Buddha and Thoth, the longbeeked god known as Egypt’s wisest.
The clothes were confident in their embrace of the past, including a satin suit trimmed in sequin stars that looked like something out of David Bowie’s wardrobe.
There was also a brown threepiece suit that you could almost imagine in a faded Kodachrome photo – except that the model wearing it had hands encrusted in rings and slick white shades.
“It requires courage to slowly linger; to stay with care,” Michele’s notes said.
He certainly did that and took a bow to the applause of celebrities like Salma Hayek – whose husband Francois-Henri Pinault heads the French group Kering that owns Gucci.
The show was Gucci’s first since Kering announced a pledge earlier this month to ban ultra-thin models from its brands’ advertising and runways. From appearances, it seemed to have kept its word. – AFP Relaxnews