DECODING Gucci’s AW19 runway show takes more than merely citing a few forms of inspiration, it’s delving into their world and discovering their motifs and agents for self-expression, unveiling their true persona and Alessandro Michele’s kaleidoscopic vision. The juxtaposition between the jarring, almost blinding flashing light bulbs and the direct nature of the clothes, conspired to create a theatrical performance for a collection that was true to Gucci’s identity and ironically relatively free of masquerade idiosyncrasies.
The whole experience was immersive and almost overwhelming: a parade of embellished, masked models walked along a 100m-long mirrored runway covered in over 120,000 LED lights to looped choral music, the Basque carol Gabriel’s Message. The Catholic influence was a running theme throughout with models wearing jewel-encrusted crucifixes and faces decorated with Madonna tears. A collision of individuality and different times, the show strayed from the whimsy of their SS19 show, opting instead for a powerful, diverse and heterogeneous showcase.
“The mask itself always holds a tension between divergent impulses: exhibition and concealment, manifestation and protection, vanity and modesty” read the show notes written by Giovanni Attilli. The mask flirts between the boundaries of what is visible and what is invisible, it both reveals the truth and deceives. They are façades. However, in a society that no longer holds masquerade balls, clothes have replaced masks. We can use clothes to disguise and veil the truth or to fulfill the rest of our identity. Gucci gives us a collection of stories and implores us, the wearers to be the narrators and mediums for the stories.
Staying true to the fashion house, Michele delivered a spectacular of eclectic mismatched items, animal-printed coats, ‘40s structured silhouettes, quilted suits, Victorian blouses, Hawaiian dad shirts, knee-pads and leggings – an unexpected and unconventional appearance, but if anyone can make the legging fashionable, surely it would be Gucci? A flurry of colour and theatrics, Gucci was caught somewhere between the wardrobe of a court jester and a ‘50s collegiate jock, they did everything but keep it simple.
The invitations were under the guise of a plaster mask of what appeared to be the face of a broken Greek statue of Hermaphroditus, the son of the gods of male and female sexuality. An homage to the duality and plurality of our identities – a point highlighted throughout this dramatic exhibition, a celebration of everything that makes us…us, drawing from different sources of inspiration.
Adhering to the movement towards less gendered clothing, the collection echoed tougher undertones, structured masculine edges, leaving no place to hide. The angled construction of the suits with the aggression of the spiked accents made the clothes protective, almost armour-like. A huge contrast to the ruffled lace Victorian blouses peeping out from underneath a heavy coat.
Whilst the masks seemed to draw the most attention, the gold ears of the models did not go unnoticed. Using the 24-carat sculptural gold ear by Eduardo Costa in the 1968 issue of Vogue as a source of inspiration, Michele commissioned replicas of the piece, but with his own twist.
As expected from Gucci, there were no shortcuts, no parsimony and no forgotten details. The show was a theatrical spectacle true to the Italian fashion house’s ethos, ideology and identity. A microcosmic collection presenting us a variety of facets and tropes unexplored simultaneously by other designers, the result was transcendent and thespian, made for the stage and the screen.
by Robyn Ngan