Gucci fall-winter 2023 is all about creative cross-pollination and improvisation
Gucci’s fall-winter 2023 Women’s Collection connects the creative cultures that cross-pollinate the history of the house in an evocative but contemporary proposal. A free expression founded in the collective memories of the designers and artisans who have shared their understanding of the house from creative to creative for over a century, it is an illustration of the beating heart of Gucci.
In an exuberant conversation between past and future, the collection reflects on Gucci as a cultural constant and reinvigorates the influence of the visionaries that fronted it, paving the way for a new dimension to its heritage.
The show unfolds within the anatomy of the house. In the inner sanctum of the Gucci Hub, elevators transport the collection through the building to the runway, illustrating the creative process behind any new proposition: from the archives where concepts ignite, through the ateliers where ideas develop, to the runway where new expressions manifest.
Surrounded by seats crafted in innovative Demetra material, spherical podiums represent the collaborative circularity at the heart of Gucci’s creative community. An obscure yet familiar soundscape triggers the memory, evoking eras and attitudes that materialize in contemporary guises as a reflection of the collection itself. The premise is personified by an ensemble cast that spans the recent eras of the house, from the 1990s to the 2010s and today.
The silhouette recalls Gucci’s erotic and glamorous form language of the 1990s and early 2000s, but paints it in the electrically sumptuous colour palette of the 2010s. Playing with the familiar feeling of returning to a dimension you once knew only to experience it bigger or smaller, tailoring magnifies while shirting and two-piece tops and skirts appear minimized. Suits in wool or leather cut an oversized frame with voluminous shoulders, dropped necklines and low-riding trousers. Skirts appear in long-line or knee-length expressions in sheer fabrics and embellished lace suggestive of lingerie. The idea echoes in a crystal-encrusted GG metal bra that sets for tone exaggerated cocktail jewelry that drapes around necklines and busts and cascades dramatically to the floor.
The sensory approach is amplified in tactile oversized knits in brushed mohair and looped yarns, and in coats and lapels crafted in oscillating shearling or faux fur dipped in vibrant hues.
Created according to the principles of savoir-faire, eveningwear conjures the shapes of hearts — a symbol of the house’s core — in the drop-waist skirt of a double-duchesse bustier dress, in the effervescence of a dress fully embroidered in contrast plume, and in the bust line of an Empire gown. Coloured visor sunglasses allude to a classic Gucci flacon, allowing the wearer to see the world through Rush-tinted glasses, while bearskins conceived in plume cement the exuberance of a collection driven by the enduring creativity that courses through the veins of Gucci.
New takes on the rounded trapezoid chain bag are adorned with the horse-bit and interpreted in padded, shearling, crystal and contrast-leather manifestations. Honoring an archival icon, the Jackie bag appears in its original shape but softened in construction and adapted in two-tone colours and GG-embossed leather.
The classic Gucci loafer is elevated on rubber soles, while snow boots originally designed for the 1960s ski collection re-emerge in wool and GG canvas tacked up with horse-bits.
Kitten heels dominate square sandals, wide-shaft boots, and tiger head-embellished sandals inspired by the Dionysus bag. Boxing boots and basketball sneakers inject the collection with a faint hint of sportswear.
The aesthetics of improvisation
In contrast, Gucci’s fall-winter 2023 Men's Collection is more about improvisation as a constructive tool for creation. As a practice exercised in theater and music, improvisation is founded in the know-how of its practitioners. When prompted to freestyle, performers access and activate the intuition of their craft.
Embracing the curiosity and candor of improvised ideas, the collection is a natural reflection of the individual, multi-faceted creatives and craftsmen who inhabit the house of Gucci; who draw on diverse knowledge, skill and imagination in the creation of a bigger picture: The aesthetics of improvisation. The premise is adapted in a live performance by Marc Ribot's Ceramic Dog. Through a customized soundtrack that develops as the show progresses, the noise-rock trio emulates the energies of the collection, building on elements from genres like jazz and punk inherent to musical improvisation.
The group appears on a spherical stage around which the show takes place: a circular formation symbolic of the collaborative spinning wheel of the creative community at the heart of Gucci. It constructs a framework for a collection focused on the archetypes of the classic gentleman's wardrobe, redefined through artisanal luxury amplification and the subversive lens of improvisation.
Activated by the diverse expressions of the characters who carry them, the garments speak to different understandings of the seduction instinctive to the masculinities of Gucci.
Crystal GG, a new lacquered interpretation of the house's coated monogram canvas from the 1970s, emblemizes the collection as a tool for visual free styling. Dipped in the vibrant colors and faded pastels that span the show, the cloth — named for its sheen — is applied to work-wear coveralls and appears in bags and shoes oversized and relaxed in construction for a tactile, aged sensibility that imbues them with soul.
Throughout the collection, the idea of how the individual chooses to wear a garment or accessory — the gestures and personality with which it is injected — take center stage.
The notion is adorned with jewelry that conjures memories from the Gucci archives: the Piston Lock, the Horsebit, the Cross, and invokes a feeling of personal, sentimental relics.
A voluminous but languid tailoring silhouette enables improvisation of styling, a sentiment echoed in suits with detachable elements that allow the wearer to transform them into sleeveless jackets and shorts.
The free and boundless facets of contemporary masculinities are observed in garments cross-pollinated either in construction or styling from traditionally contrasting wardrobes: sportswear informed by Gucci's 1980s archives evoke the codes of dance, while motorcycling garments pay tribute to archival pieces from the early 2000s or splice with the sculpting of archetypal overcoats.
Inspired by the same era, denim trousers faded as if washed with fuel are adorned with the logo originally launched by Gucci in 1953 when the house opened its first store in New York.
Customized pieces pay homage to improvised self-expression: vintage-like foulards are tied around bags and used to patch denim trousers; the revealed lining of deconstructed tracksuits becomes decorative details; and traditional evening trousers transform into statuesquely draped, floor-length skirts that reveal the legs in movement.
The effects lean into constructions that are not what they seem. Upon closer inspection, a classic jogger is structured in lightweight leather, and a Caban coat that appears as if covered in plume is fully embroidered with multi-dimensional white sequins, amplifying the craftsmanship at the core of Gucci.
The collection features a magnified reinterpretation of the Jackie bag softened in construction and adorned with the Piston Lock originally created by Tom Ford for Gucci, in faded pastel crocodile editions. Select fabrications are echoed in the Dionysus, which materializes stripped of its original decorative construction, but still bears its emblematic, double-edged, tiger-headed horseshoe buckle and a new leather strap.
Garment bags worn as shoulder bags are crafted in colored, coated canvases, while the Crystal GG canvas features in a new rectangular relaxed hold-all proposed in the palette of the collection, and in a classic 1970s round-toed ankle boot. It appears alongside a heeled Princetown slipper expanded in dimension with the signature green-red-green web, and a Horsebit loafer with a lived-in effect, reflecting the collection's emphasis on personalization.
A soft, quilted motorcycle boot makes its debut in a multitude of colors.
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In the Philippines, Gucci is located in Greenbelt 4, Ayala Center, Makati; and Shangri-La Plaza East Wing, Mandaluyong.
