The finale of the fall 2015 men's wear show at Gucci.
By
all outward signs — the location, on Piazza Oberdan, the milling crowds
of gawkers and photographers outside, even the champagne-bearing
waiters in the lacquered black atrium within — there was nothing unusual
about the Gucci men’s wear show Monday.
But the collection, and the machinations behind it, told a different story.
Kering, the French company that owns Gucci (as well as Saint Laurent, Alexander McQueen, Stella McCartney and others) announced in December that Frida Giannini,
Gucci’s creative director since 2006, and Patrizio di Marco, her
partner and its chief executive, would leave the house after the
presentation of, first, the men’s fall collection and then, the women’s.
But news broke last week that Ms. Giannini had been abruptly dismissed,
the remainder of her time at the helm cut short, and the collection she
had worked to design and produce scuttled. Into her place stepped the
design team, under the direction of Alessandro Michele, Ms. Giannini’s
deputy and head accessories designer, who oversaw the creation of an
entirely new collection in less than a week. The runway samples were
arriving from Gucci factories in the northwestern Italian city of Novara
as late as Sunday night.
What
Gucci might look like as designed by this team and whether Mr. Michele
would be, as is rumored, named its next creative director, has been the
talk of Milan for the past several days. (A company representative said
that an announcement could be made as early as this week.) Models who
had been booked in the show for seasons were suddenly dropped, and an
entirely new cast brought in. (“They’re doing guys with tattoos,” the
general grumble went among the modeling classes.) Styling duties, in
recent seasons the purview of Alister Mackie, the creative director of
Another Man magazine, were this season handled by the internal team.
“It’s
going to be completely different,” said Nick Wooster, the moustachioed
fashion consultant (and much-followed Instagram celebrity), who
confessed himself old enough to remember not only Gucci under Tom Ford,
Ms. Giannini’s most famous predecessor, but Gucci before Tom Ford . “I’m
only seeing two shows here,” he added. “I saw Prada last night and I’m
excited to see this one. If there’s a season to see a Gucci show, this
is the season.”
From
the first steps into the theater, it was clear things were not as they
once were, though the implications of the token changes in setup and
seating arrangement might be clear only to fashion’s most accomplished
tea-leaf readers. For the first time in years, an additional row of
seats was added down what used to be the center of the runway, which was
newly laid with metal grates. Models would march in a U-shaped
formation rather than straight down the catwalk and back again.
But
those changes paled in comparison to the collection itself, which mixed
elements of women’s wear (and a handful of women models) in with its
men’s wear, and skewed younger and edgier than Gucci had in its previous
incarnation. Perhaps inescapably, there was a sense of uncertainty to
the collection, titled “Urban Romanticism.” Even the label’s official
press statement noted: “From a flourish of a chiffon bow to mink-lined
men’s slippers to smatterings of signet rings, a dreamy ambiguity
pulsates throughout.”
There
were no answers or clarifications to be had from Mr. Michele or the
team, who did not speak with the press, but did appear at the end of the
runway to appreciative applause. Mr. Michele, unknown even to many
industry professionals after years behind the scenes, turned out to be a
grizzly looking man in an Aran sweater, with shoulder-length dark hair
and a full beard, who pressed his hands together and took a small and
slightly overwhelmed-looking bow.
Afterward,
some skeptics noted what they considered borrowings from other, buzzier
labels, including Prada, J.W. Anderson and Saint Laurent, whose punky
irreverence seemed to cast the longest shadow.
But
others appreciated the invigoration that the collection (and, perhaps,
the drama surrounding it) brought to a largely dozy fashion week.
“This
is a different Gucci,” said Robert Rabensteiner, the debonair fashion
editor at large of the local men’s wear bible, L’Uomo Vogue. “I loved
it.”
