If you’re feeling bohemian like Gucci SS16, this is going to be a collection that you will adore. Creative director Alessandro Michele input this season, all frilly lace, patchouli-soaked prints and romanticised androgyny, was as adamant as his first two efforts, the new Gucci is here to stay and all we need to do is get used to it.
That shouldn’t be too hard; after all, the clothes are beautiful. Georgia Jagger proved this on choosing a custom Gucci by Michele kimono dress at the MET Gala earlier this year, and emerging as a real belle of the ball.
For menswear this season, Alessandro blurred gender lines further with ensembles that flexed between masculine and foppishly feminine all put together very fashionably. Classic Gucci trench coats were cinched in in snakeskin and whilst, like the rest of the collection, they were ‘sexless’, they certainly weren’t lacking in it either.
Emerald silk kimonos with mink cuffs and gorgeous ruched lace collars with floral garnishes hit the spot divinely, providing Gucci’s new menswear frontier with an exotic, somewhat oriental and rightfully hedonistic glam. This kind of patina feels just right for the house at this point and doesn’t feel at all forced, like during some of Frida Giannini’s outings for instance. Instead, Alessandro is embarking on just the right kind of stylistic shifts and sticking to them too for maximum impact.
Whilst the skirts for men were a little tiresome, a nice effort for sure, fashion’s many enfant terribles have already worn out that novelty before and it’s not really stuck. Nonetheless, the ballad of Alessandro Michele, which is playing out in a similar beatnik vein to Marianne Faithful’s rendition of The Ballard of Lucy Jordan, is a really exciting chapter in the evolution of Gucci’s guns-blazing kind of luxury.
by Liam Feltham
Images courtesy of Style.com