THE CHANGING FACE OF MENSWEAR
Cast out your jeans and T-shirts, a new era has arrived—— and yes, it involves skirts. Gucci’s Alessandro Michele is revolutionising the away young men dress today.
There is such a big change in masculinity,” says Alessandro Michele, creative director of Gucci. He’s talking about the Fashioning Masculinities exhibition at the V&A, which recently opened and for which Gucci is a partner, but he could be talking about his own designs. Since Michele took the reins at Gucci in 2015, questioning what masculinity means has become a signature theme for the Italian luxury fashion giant, with the designer making suits in rainbowbright colours and graphic prints and dressing men in feather boas and skirts.
Redefining Masculinity
“I like the word flamboyant because it means being super alive, especially in this time,” he continues. A recent picture of the Spider-Man actor Andrew Garfield, resplendent in a pink Gucci satin suit adorned with outsize fabric flowers, springs to mind. The actor had never looked happier, beaming from ear to ear. Other fans include Idris Elba, Jared Leto and Tyler, the Creator, with this more flamboyant mood in menswear even filtering down to the mainstream. These days you are as likely to see an Essex boy wearing a pink suit jacket as an A-lister. “This is about freedom,” Michele reiterates.
The exhibition is the V&A’s first dedicated solely to menswear and, following the museum’s recent sell-out fashion shows including Dior and McQueen, is set to be summer’s hot ticket. Images of influential male fashion pin-ups through the ages from the 16th-century prince Alessandro Farnese to David Bowie will feature, as well as creations from other designers redefining masculinity. “There is such a big change in the way that people think a man should look,” Michele says.
When fluidity and genderless flatter form
For the exhibition’s grand finale Gucci has lent a custom dress, made for Harry Styles, that he wore on the cover of US Vogue in December 2020. The pop star’s disregard for gender constrictions in his wardrobe has been lent a chic seriousness by his brand association with Michele’s Gucci. “We are friends,” says the designer. “It’s meaningful because for Harry it is about freedom.” Indeed, men in skirts was once considered an act of wilful cultural insurrection. A national identity meltdown over David Beckham wearing a sarong is still only two decades old. Yet, in 2022, boys in slip dresses constitute standard-issue metropolitan club-wear. “If Harry, an established pop star, can do it, then young people feel like they are OK to do it,” Michele says. The designer, 49, is talking from the new Gucci design studio in Rome. He is wearing a Breton stripe jumper, outsize spectacle frames and an elaborate 18thcentury necklace in Neapolitan coral adorned with the faces of goddesses. At the nape of his neck is a Bacchante icon, a priestess in thrall to Bacchus. “She is a goddess of insanity. It’s amazing! Sometimes I like to dream about the story of the things that I wear.” His conversational meter is one of unguarded enthusiasm. He is a highly likeable man.
“From very recent times men have been scared to show who they are,” he elaborates. “And sometimes, you know, it’s about power. We invented the idea of ‘man power’ in the 20th century and now we are destroying ‘man power’. It means that you are free. You are free to cry, to laugh, to hug another man because you are friends. The condition of masculinity has changed.”
Back to the roots
Originally from Rome, Michele had a glamorous upbringing: his mother, an assistant to a film executive, was part of the Italian movie business, while his father worked for the airline Alitalia. After fashion school Michele worked at Fendi before moving to Gucci, where he assisted Frida Giannini, the then creative director. But from the moment he took over, the house’s aesthetic changed; his “more is more” philosophy ushered in a new age of maximalism and he mixed men’s and women’s pieces from the outset. “People think I am the inventor of fluidity, genderless, I don’t know what?” he says, smiling. He