To present its collection, Gucci puts its creative team in the spotlight

Decidedly, Alessandro Michele has the gift of surprising us. In Gucci’s latest video, the model casting was done exclusively from the creative team who designed the collection itself.

Unveiled Friday morning, on the last day (out of four) of the first edition of Milan Digital Fashion Week, the video of the Florentine house is titled Gucci Epilogue.

“I wanted to pay homage to the magical ritual of a fashion show: a sacred and unique liturgy, through which creative thought is revealed and offered as an interpretation to a community of free spectators. I wanted to raise the curtain behind the scenes”, explained Alessandro Michele, framed in a pop-up window that popped up regularly during the online presentation.

The video was staged at Palazzo Sacchetti, a sublime Renaissance palace located on Via Giulia in the historic heart of Rome. An impressive building, which stands out for its magnificent Renaissance trompe-l’oeil frescoes and the giant goddess heads that adorn its terracotta roof. A prime location, located a few hundred meters from Alessandro Michele’s apartment and Gucci’s design studio.

It was in fact a live broadcast, which included several pre-recorded videos here and there. The presentation opened with an unknown woman in an embossed cotton dressing gown, being made up, surrounded by masked technicians busy with the final preparations. It was actually Sandrine Delloye, the junior fashion designer at Gucci – a middle-aged woman, like a dozen other models for a day chosen from among her colleagues. Obviously, containment was creative at Gucci.

Sandrine Delloye then wore one of the latest looks, passage 76E: trefoil green pants, a silk blouse and turban with a stunning floral print blazer. Handbag designer Beatrice Gianni wore the first look, a typical Alessandro Michele composition – a combed wool g-logo vest and jacket, a red knee-length skirt and snakeskin boots . With a silver cross and numerous bracelets on the wrists, a great classic of the Roman designer, a happy encounter between a downgraded aristocrat and a young intellectual.

We then saw the designer of women’s ready-to-wear Daniele Grande, wearing an elegant checked coat, worn over a striped top and jeans. As with most looks, Daniele Grande was displayed in triplicate onscreen: zooming in on the model’s colorful lineup, an image of the outfit, and a shot of the face, often overlaid on live videos of the model. inside a palace or its garden, where Gucci had installed a small circular trampoline. Sometimes the colored ranges were presented in the form of animated videos, which gave a clear idea of ​​the clothes. Windows that opened to the screen were often juxtaposed with photos of fruits and vegetables – earthy tomatoes, purple cabbages and split peas.

At the start of the video, a robotic voiceover indicates that this is the final act of a fairy tale, the end of a trilogy. Alessandro Michele reappears on screen after the presentation, explaining that the pandemic has had the effect of transforming “the creator [en] interpreter”.

In a nutshell, this is a witty way to present a particularly colorful and playful Gucci collection, interspersed with shots of cracked dolls, 19th century living rooms and worn sofas in abandoned courtyards.

“In the company where I work, the teams share the idea that change is essential, interesting, and that you have to start, be courageous. I embarked on this change, and I understood that doesn’t really have to be brave, you just have to follow your instincts, ”says Alessandro Michele, at the end of what is probably his most personal aesthetic manifesto since the start of his revolutionary reign as head of Gucci.