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Gucci’s Season-Free Fashion

In May 2020 Gucci’s visionary Alessandro Michele announced that the Italian luxury brand intended to permanently limit the number of fashion shows it produces down to two.

“The change I imagine involves the capacity to reconnect with the deepest reasons that inspired my entry into the fashion realm,” he wrote. “I feel the need to renew a bond, purifying the essential by getting rid of the unnecessary. I crave the authentic motive of a choice. The full set of reasons that set me on my way. I understand, as time went by, that these motives have different names and different intensities, but they inevitably gather around the same urgency: the possibility to tell.”

Moving towards Spring 2021, SSENSE No. 3 expressed beautifully Gucci’s new attitude in the fashion story shot in Mallorca by Vanina Sorrenti [IG]. The imagery featuring models Aminata Diao and Nina Alonso styled in Gucci by Julia Ragolia perfectly captures Alessandro Michele’s ‘new mood’. Better yet , ‘Tender Light On a Mallorcan Farm’ reflects a “new fashion philosophy” in which clothes and inner reflection fuse into a deeper, values-driven sentiment about identity. / Hair and makeup by Tess Alamillo

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Gucci’s Season-Free Fashion 2021 Update

A year later, it’s reasonable to ask — well, how is Gucci doing walking their talk about “season-free fashion”. After causing palpitations in the heart of parent Kering, with its lackluster fourth-quarter performance, Gucci is rebounding with a 25 percent increase in revenues in the first quarter of 2021. Most promising is the triple-digit growth that Gucci experienced in China. The Kering rebound is not keeping pace with LVMH’s performance, but financial analysts agree that long-term predictions cannot be made within such a short performance window.

Celebrating Gucci’s 100th anniversary in 2021 has already been a dynamic experience, including the current Gucci and Balenciaga ‘hacking lab’. As for the show schedule, Gucci is headed to Los Angeles, with a co-ed, calendar-free runway presentation on Nov. 3. WWD reminds us that the COVID-19 pandemic cancelled Gucci’s plans for a Cruise collection show in May 2020.

The Nov. 3 date coincides with the LACMA+Film Gala, schedled for Nov. 6, with Gucci as the founding and presenting sponsor.

WWD also quotes Alessandro Michele with an interesting comment on the liberaiton of his time — and also the spotlight — he now feels as a leader among luxury brand creatives. After introducing his ‘Aria’ collection through a film he once again directed, the designer said that he felt “free,” giving “a natural rhythm” to the collections. “Of course, there is more responsibility in this self-pacing, and I want to be attentive to the company and position the brand in a respectful way. I see there is a very democratic movement, designers are positioning their brands in ways that will avoid getting in the way of the others.”