Gucci to “abandon the worn-out ritual of seasonalities”
In a series of diary entries shared via social media, Gucci’s creative director Alessandro Michele has announced the luxury brand will replace the traditional schedule of 4-5 fashion shows a year with just two shows a year.
“I will abandon the worn-out ritual of seasonalities and shows to regain a new cadence, closer to my expressive call,” he wrote. “We will meet just twice a year, to share the chapters of a new story. Irregular, joyful and absolutely free chapters, which will be written blending rules and genres, feeding on new spaces, linguistic codes and communication platforms.”
Between the diary entries and a follow-up video conference, Mr Michele discussed how the industry standards of spring/summer, autumn/winter, cruise and pre-autumn shows perpetuate an unsustainable approach to fashion.
"Clothes should have a longer life than that which these words attribute to them," said Mr Michele. "Two appointments a year are more than enough to give time to form a creative thought and to give more time to this system."
The luxury fashion house "went too far", he wrote. "Our reckless actions have burned the house we live in. We conceived of ourselves as separated from nature, we felt cunning and almighty. We usurped nature, we dominated and wounded it. We incited Prometheus, and buried Pan.”
In his diary entries, Mr Michele also wrote of his creative process being hindered by existing expectations. “That is why I decided to build a new path, away from deadlines that the industry consolidated and, above all, away from an excessive performativity that today really has no raison d’être.”
