Gucci has named famed UNESCO world heritage site Alyscamps as the location of its cruise 2019 show on 30 May, 2018. This is the first time the site has been used as the setting for a catwalk event.
The tree-lined path with sarcophagi on either side is one of the world’s most renowned Roman necropoleis, positioned outside the town of Arles in the south of France. The area was made by even more famous by Paul Gauguin and Vincent Van Gogh who painted the ancient burial ground.
Gucci has chosen locations of huge cultural significance for its latest cruise shows, including the DIA-Art Foundation in New York, the Cloisters at Westminster Abbey in London and the Palatina Gallery in Florence’s Palazzo Pitti.
GUCCI CRUISE 2017
There are few fashion shows where photographers receive advance warnings about what they may shoot which start: 'Do not capture clergy, choirboys nor any religious staff,' before additionally advising against the use of foul language. Then again, has any brand ever put on a show in a venue as august as Westminster Abbey? The most important gothic building in Britain, steeped in more than a thousand years of history, site of royal coronations and final resting place for 17 monarchs, it's no ordinary location. In fact, the last time it saw so many fabulously dressed visitors was probably the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. But the bar is set high for cruise shows this season and so, by kind permission of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, Gucci made a little history of their own today.
Of course, Alessandro Michele has been doing that since he took over as creative director 18 months ago, bringing a cool vintage-inspired eccentricity to the formerly va-va-voom brand. His charming, idiosyncratic vision has found fans in Sienna Miller, Cate Blanchett and Gwyneth Paltrow, sending sales soaring and inspiring a change in fashion consciousness as complete as that effected by Phoebe Philo at Céline. 'If you have rules, you let creativity sleep,' he says.
Were anyone expecting a change of direction here, they would have been wrong. But disappointed? Not at all. Michele's heirloom aesthetic – rich in reference, colour and texture, madly and gloriously embellished - seemed completely at home in Westminster Abbey's stone cloisters, as though a poem to its timeless beauty. (The show, it's worth noting, wasn't in the actual church but behind it, in vaulted stone-flagged corridors lined with memorials to the great and good who are buried here.)
The usual magpie eclecticism found rich new seams in British culture: as models walked in slow procession to choral music, it was easy to spot the inspirations, from punks and rockers via Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots, through Eton schoolboys to our own Queen with headscarf and top handled bag carried just so. A striped dressing-gown coat, an embroidered kilt, a tartan gown, checked riding caps, spiked denim jackets, straw boaters, rain hats, Cavalier King Charles spaniels prints, rich brocades, country florals, Victorian collars, funereal beading, even a sweater knitted into Union Jack stripes... Michele's eye travelled far and wide across the years and miles. In the nicest possible way, everything was thrown into the mix - what emerged was a joyful homage to English eccentricity, which felt entirely of its own. Jolly good show.
By Avril Mair
Courtesy of Gucci
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