When you are about to look at a new collection by Gucci, you should prepare yourself adequately to receive the message it will carry. No prejudice and no expectations - okay, maybe some expectations, since Alessandro Michele's aesthetic has consolidated towards years and it is now, after 5 years spent at the Maison, quite codified and well known. In short, no barrier to entry, but doors open as if facing a work of art.
And the Pre Fall 2020 shots taken in Rome look exactly like artistic photographs. Not the Rome that we imagine anyway: not the tourist places nor the fancy ones in the city center. More than anything else the suburbs, public transports and the walk along the Tiber, places that become moving because they contain the poignant beauty of the reality of modern metropolises, where men and women from all over the world meet daily.
Meeting and exchange has always been one of the central themes in Alessandro Michele's speech. The encounter between cultures, with the different, but also the encounter between the dress and the wearer. They are all disaggregated realities that unite and create a new message. Nobody like Michele, after all, believe that fashion is interesting mainly because of its ability to transmit messages. I remember seeing an interview long ago, in which the designer told of his childhood. As a teenager already, his genius was seen and perceived but, in the peripheral and provincial Rome of twenty years ago, was not only not understood, but kept away indeed. Gucci now seems to be the wonderland for Michele, a place of his own where his most imaginative dreams come finally to life. And they are appreciated.
So the collection mixes the bon ton of the 60s, the airy shapes and prints of the 70s and the continuous but veiled reference to sexuality, a theme that has no epoch but that today, thanks to Michele himself, rediscovers all its strength . The final message is one: empowerment. That arises from our relationship with ourselves, with what we wear and what we show to the surrounding world, and widens and affects the world around us. We are unique particles linked by invisible threads: it's up to us to decide how binding they are for us.
words by Giulia Greco