It is in Rome, in the heart of Palazzo Alberini, a work by Raphael built in the XVIe century, that is the creation studio of Alessandro Michele, creative director of Gucci since 2015. This monumental place whose white walls with classic moldings and bas-reliefs are extended by frescoes signed by the Renaissance master seems carved tailor-made for this apostle of historicism, also a compulsive collector.
On his carved wooden desk, piles of books and antique objects compete for the smallest nook: marbled turtle from the 19th centurye century, porcelain heads of old dolls, figurines of the Madonna, golden laurel wreath, stuffed peacocks and parrots or even a wagon-shaped toy. A cabinet of curiosities in the image of his fashion, heterogeneous and baroque, maximalist and poetic, in which symbols, identities and ornaments intersect, without any hierarchy.
The designer mixes and decontextualizes everything: the gilding of a Venetian palace electrifies skateboard bombers, dandy pajamas are colored with Gothic stained glass windows, dinosaurs inhabit the gardens of Eden.
This enthusiast of Fellini and Visconti, whose style we more readily compare to that of Wes Anderson, claims a form of subversive kitsch, eminently personal. Today the phenomenal success of Gucci, it is him. Moreover, the fashion industry recovers and digests its baroque ideas. The most esoteric messages with the slightest embroidered sequin.
He weaves, he crosses references, juxtaposes them to the point of blurring the lines. Without ever having to choose. It makes ambiguity – sexual, stylistic, cultural – its standard bearer. Here, a stylized Donald’s head, there an evening dress like Hélène de Troy or Catherine de Médicis. Further, mannequins with the eye of Cyclops, baby dragons and horns of fauna. When ouroboros don’t wrap around leather harnesses.
In his dreamlike and Dantesque silhouettes, the designer mixes and decontextualizes everything: the gilding of a Venetian palace electrifies skateboard bombers, dandy pajamas are colored with Gothic stained glass windows, dinosaurs inhabit the gardens of Eden. The ladies of Shanghai cross cyborgs when punk metal picks play down the Christlike looks. It shines, it squeaks… It’s disturbing, delusional. The bestiaries dress in cosmic colors, the ruffles are covered with sequins, the precious brocades and velvets envelop the silhouettes. Time has no more hold.
As a child, Michele saw himself as an archaeologist, he retained from this dream his propensity to excavate the origin of things. And everything that is emblazoned with Gucci now bears the mark of the whimsical: from candles imprisoned in porcelain vases in the shape of a tiger, adorned with mysterious patterns, through chairs dressed in moiré-effect jacquard with dragon designs up to ‘to a simple blush palette slipped into a black lacquered box with golden finishes flowered with vintage roses. Thought rejoins popular culture – the creator summons Foucault in his notes of intention – the overflow mingles with the sensitive, as if to better underline the paradoxes of the time. And remember the essential need to get out of it too.