Gucci offers kinky turn at Milan Fashion Week
Iggy Pop, A$AP Rocky and Jared Leto filled the front row for the show within a show that gave a kinky turn to Gucci’s equestrian heritage and railed against uniforms as a liberty-depriving force.
The Gucci collection and staging were sparer and less eccentric than his usual fare. Michele, who has completely upended the Gucci design language during his tenure, finally employed the equestrian motifs that are core to Gucci’s identity.
But in deliberate fetish turn, he gave a whip “to a girl coming out of a club” and a series of sadomasochistic mistresses.
“I don’t feel like I am a servant of the market,” Michele said, explaining that wealthy horse owners were an ideal target for a luxury brand.
The mistresses were at times elegant, dressed in plunging gold lame tops with a corresponding deep-V slit in the accompanying leather skirt and at times kinky — puritan collars on a dark robe with sheer sleeves and chain detailing.
At still other times they were overtly erotic, in lace and silk panel slips with red leather gloves and black dominatrix boots.
Michele also rejected the notion that his expression of gender fluidity in collections “was a new 2.0 discovery. Instead, it is something that exists.”
The statement clearly understates the impact Gucci has had in almost five years, disorienting the fashion world. But it also taps into his notion of reaching people who were previously under-represented in luxury fashion.
Designer’s Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana set their latest collection in a jungle, a mythic Sicilian jungle, an admittedly tough act after Jennifer Lopez broke the internet this week wearing a sheer, sexy jungle dress on the Milan runway of another fashion house.
For spring, Dolce&Gabbana tapped into their own sexy DNA with a series of clingy, flattering black dresses that are the brand’s calling card.
The black numbers served as palate cleansers between bursts of inspiration around the jungle theme, starting with khaki safari suiting.
Dresses were done in elegant renderings of zebra, leopard and tiger prints and worn with matching sheer hosiery.
The exotic Laceleaf replaced the fashion house’s signature red rose on some prints, and jungle print dresses covered a range of occasions, from summer shopping to seaside attire to evening fun. featured a mix of basics with staying power — simple suits, knit skirts and top combos — alongside more adorned pieces like beaded overcoats that can become heirlooms.
Prada said the idea she was trying to convey was that the person wearing the garments “is more important than the fashion.”
The sometimes austere looks at times summoned images or elements of puritans, nuns, and schoolmarms — all with a subversive fashion edge. Textiles formed the leitmotiv of the collection: heavy male wools, rough silk and muslin.
The collection opened with a fine-knit gray sweater and straight light rose muslin skirt, introducing muslin as a mainstay of the collection. Other pieces included simple summer dresses fastened at the shoulders with bows, and tiered looks, perhaps contrasting velvet panels at the neck, like a soft judicial frill. Mix-and-match suits featured two-button blazers in blue over gray button-down shirts and widelegged brown trousers, for a look of classic ease. The only real adornments were sequin leaf patterns on skirts and overcoats.