When Gucci announced it was going to radically change how it showed its collections, the fashion world sat up and paid attention. As one of the most influential (not to mention theatrical) brands at Milan Fashion Week, Alessandro Michele knows how to put on a show. Since taking the helm at Gucci in 2015, Michele has transformed his ‘catwalk’ into everything from an eerie operating theatre to an onstage immersive experience; he's transported them to Westminster Abbey and the Alyscamps burial ground in Arles.
Back in May, Gucci announced that not only would it not be making ‘autumn/winter’ or ‘spring/summer’ collections anymore - turning away from, what its creative director called, ‘the worn-out ritual of seasonalities’ - but that it would be scaling back to two shows a year. But the very word ‘shows’ doesn’t quite do justice to what they've managed to cook up in a few short months. Launched this week, GucciFest is a mini film festival that showcases its new collection, Ouverture Of Something That Never Ended, and offers a unique window into the mind of a creative like Michele.
SEE: The Latest Gucci Collection
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The seven-part mini series, directed by Gus Van Sant and Michele, will be unveiled one episode per evening until 22 November, and centres around artist and performer Silvia Calderoni. The first episode, At Home, sees her waking up and performing a rather mundane morning routine, albeit in the kind of surroundings you would imagine from a magpie like Michele, while the subsequent episodes will follow her day as she progresses from the cafe to the post office to the theatre, encountering house ‘friends’ such as Harry Styles, Billie Eilish and Florence Welch.
Styles appeared in last night's episode, At The Post Office, wearing a pink varsity tee, denim shorts and white socks with loafers. 'I think when it comes to making art, it's about finding the thing you've always wanted to see or you've always wanted to listen to that has like never been made,' he says on the phone, standing in a garden.
Available for everyone to watch, not just an elite community of press, buyers and customers, it’s an extremely stylish insight into what the future of the fashion show might look like post-pandemic.
As well as the mini series, GucciFest will be premiering fashion films (15 to be exact) from young independent designers that have been hand-picked by Michele, including Priya Ahluwalia, Collina Strada, Rave Review and Bianca Saunders. Why not give your normal streaming service a break and immerse yourself this evening?