Gucci brings frock and awe to London in celebration of origin story
On a picture perfect spring evening in London, 600 guests clutching tickets for Gucci’s show at the Tate Modern gathered at the gallery’s riverside entrance in their finery on Monday. An army of loafer-shod champagne waiters escorted the footballer Leah Williamson to her seat next to the actor Andrew Scott, while the K-pop star Lee Know stopped for a chat with Paul Mescal, and Dua Lipa paused to read the words of Mustafa the Poet, beamed in vast white lettering that covered the floor of the Turbine Hall.
Gucci Londra, staged in one of the city’s most spectacular cultural spaces, was the kind of shiny, glamorous, see-and-be-seen night that has become less common in post-Brexit London.
London fashion week has suffered an erosion of profile with the recent departure of famous names such as Victoria Beckham, who now presents her collections in Paris. Shows of this awe-inducing scale are now far beyond the means of almost all British brands.
The Venetian musician Yakamoto Kotzuga kickstarted the soundtrack as the first model emerged, wearing baggy jeans with vintage-style patching and thick-rimmed glasses, a slouchy suede blazer unbuttoned over a loose daisy-print blouse. These were laidback clothes aimed at generation Z as they revisit boho summer style.
A ballet pump-meets-loafer hybrid scored murmurs of audience approval, which will be music to the ears of the Gucci top brass, who are battling a sales downturn after a slowdown in Asia.
“Englishness with an Italian accent,” according to the designer Sabato De Sarno, who chose London for his first show outside Milan to honour the origins of Gucci. The founder, Guccio Gucci, had the idea for his luggage brand while working as a porter at the Savoy hotel across the river.
“Breathtaking,” was the model Sabrina Elba’s verdict after the show. “In a word? Just, yes,” said Alexa Chung.
De Sarno’s mother, spanking new Gucci handbag in her son’s signature lacquered red nestled in her lap, dabbed her eyes as Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s The Power of Love boomed through the room.
Tristram Hunt, the director of the Victoria and Albert Museum, which will soon open an exhibition devoted to Naomi Campbell and another of photography from Elton John’s collection, said he hoped the night signalled the start of a glamorous summer for the city.
He added: “We all need that brightness, don’t we?”
De Sarno’s third show for Gucci found him beginning to have fun. Where his first shows doubled down on classic simplicity, this collection jacked up the energy: pearl chokers, bugle beaded party dresses, sport socks with greenand-red Gucci trim, and offbeat colour combinations of mustard with lavender, or lemon with rose.