Fashion Revolution: Alessandro Michele
Anatomy of one of the most acclaimed designers of the last years and of the elements that characterize his Gucci kingdom
Fashion
May 16th, 2017
May 16th, 2017
There is something in Alessandro Michele’s style that makes the world of fashion go crazy.
Just look at the hype around every Gucci collection for every ad campaign and project; just browse the pages of any blog or fashion magazine to figure it out. Just over two years were enough for this forty-year-old Roman to become from a talented Mr. Nobody to one of the most important contemporary personalities.
Among the 100 most influential men in the world, best designers in 2016, he has put the Gucci brand at the heart of international attention, giving it a boost in earnings. The secret? A redundant, baroque fashion, with no gender boundaries, out of sync, which follows its internal pace deliberately offset. It is an archaeological work that looks to the past to dress a contemporary, out of time synonym.
Michele stratifies, mixes inspirations, decorations, different details in a unique and personal way: renaissance and metropolitan graffiti, punk and chinoiserie, Caterina De Medici and Studio 54, tigers and snakes, prints and tees, faux vintage and unique pieces. The collections he creates are full of colors, shapes, and ideas. They are full of beauty.
A visual orgy that you would never stop looking at.
REVOLUTION
For him, beauty is "a complicated language". It is baroque, dissonant, ambiguous. As his fashion. Someone despises him, others call him revolutionary.
Alessandro in an interview explains his opinion,
« I don’t feel like a revolutionary man, I just feel myself. If the revolution is the beauty, I’m a revolutionary.»
Here are the codes that make Michele special to us.
#1 Gender blurring
With Alessandro Michele, the distinction between male and female becomes a barely perceptible hint. In his catwalk girls and guys wear similar and interchangeable garments, with floral prints, lace, bows, embroidery. There is an interchange between man and woman, same spirit, freedom of action.
A provocation?
According to the designer,
"It’s a point of view. Someone felt almost provoked, it was not my intention. It’s the world, I have not invented anything. It’s the aesthetic I see in the street. The idea that some women want to feel free to wear their boyfriend’s clothes is not a revolution. As if I think men wearing something from women’s wardrobe are beautiful."
He continues: "I think that if you talk about beauty, sexuality is less important. I start with beauty and romance, and when you try to work with the beauty, with the soul, with that kind of aesthetic, in the end, sexuality disappears".
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#2 Social meets art & fashion
Michele does not just create clothes. He creates a world populated of dying beauty, perfectly imperfect, and carries it even through a smart and contemporary use of social media. This is the case with #GucciGram and #TFWGUCCI.
The first is an art remix project where illustrators and creators of the web like Amalia Ulman and Ryder Ripps have been invited to tell the iconic motifs of the Gucci Blooms brand and Gucci Caleido. With #TFWGUCCI, that is, “That feel when”, artists and meme authors interpret their new collection of watches Le Marché des Merveilles with their own, creating a successful creative contest. And what about the designer’s Instagram profile? Just look at @lallo25 to peek into Alessandro Michele’s world, inspiration, antiquity, selfie, backstage moments.
#3 A hippie Renaissance idea of fashion
"I always have the Renaissance in my mind".
Alessandro Michele is not afraid to admit it: he loves that period, the opulence of decorations, the idea that everything is possible, without rules. Because, for him, "nothing compares to the Medici family and that explosion of decadence and beauty in Florence".
Everything in him tells this passion: his creations, the advertising campaigns made for Gucci with Glen Luchford, his look, his rings, the interior design of home and office, the Instagram profile.
The FW17 collection is the perfect example of the designer’s tie with that magical period.
#4 More is more, less is bore
The aesthetics of the new Gucci are hyperbolic.
It is saturated.
It is a cauldron of ideas, suggestions, details that emerge from Alessandro Michele’s creativity as from a magician’s cylinder. It blends together British eccentricity, contemporary street style, a bestiary dominated by tigers and snakes, floral fantasies, lines, Renaissance, punk, poster tees, 80s excess, vintage, ... and so on.
