Imagine you wake up to discover that you are living in an amazing Modernist house in the Hollywood Hills and that your housemates are none other than legendary rocker Iggy Pop and rappers A$AP Rocky and Tyler, the Creator. Oh, and Iggy’s pet parrot Biggy Pop. You hang out, cooking spaghetti and taking in the night-time view of the City of Angels. And, just for good measure, you have an unlimited wardrobe by Gucci.

This surreal scenario is what Gucci’s creative director Alessandro Michele dreamt up to promote this season’s menswear tailoring offer from the Italian house – minus your involvement, of course. The images, shot by cult movie director Harmony Korine, are arresting and everything we have come to expect from Gucci: eccentric, colourful, irreverent and, crucially, different. Most importantly, perhaps, they are fun. Michele says, ‘The result is a group campaign with three men who I believe had fun too. There is always this image of eccentricity, because they are, in fact, eccentric themselves’.

Indeed, they are. What’s interesting here, though, is that fun is not a word often associated with designer fashion, where more often than not we are encouraged to see the clothes as a type of art form. Often deadpan, humourless models stare out at us in (often) deadpan, humourless clothes. If Gucci’s extraordinary success since Michele took the design reins in 2015 is down to any one thing, I’d contend it is because it has fearlessly followed its own path into a world of decorative exuberance that encourages people to dare to be different.

Significantly, this is not an old-school approach to look-at-me opulence, where the clothing and accessories are designed to scream wealth (and by implication, power), but instead something much more akin to a type of poetic Romanticism. The emphasis is squarely on personality and individualism rather than anything designed to impress in a more conventional way. The bold colours, the patches and embroideries, the (mis)match of patterns, the layering, the jewellery – all this speaks of a confidence that Gucci wishes to share with its male customers, enabling them to express themselves freely. And, encouraging them to discover, or perhaps rediscover, that getting dressed can be, well… fun.

Here’s Michele again, talking of his three extrovert and talented housemates: ‘A certain type of fun is also portrayed and the idea of how one’s obsession with appearances can create a kind of common ground that can become a sort of brotherhood. It was beautiful to see these three men together, seemingly different but very similar.’ Certainly part of the Gucci mantra for the past five years has been a sense of creating a communal project. Are you with us, or not? Come over to our side; become a part of the Gucci tribe; join in the fun. And clearly, over the past few years, if financial results are anything to go by, many have heeded the call. While Gucci’s turnover in 2015, when Michele was appointed as creative director, was nearly 3.9 billion euros, the most recent figures available (for 2019) have the firm trading at over 9.6 billion.

Of course, we’re not all musicians, so maybe we can’t all rock maximum Gucci. And yet look at Dev Patel and Mark Ronson at movie premieres in sharp Gucci grey suits, or Micheal Ward at this year’s BAFTAs in his super-sleek Gucci dinner suit, and you can see that the Florentine firm knows how to do elegant as well as eccentric. In fact, deconstruct the images of Iggy and friends in their Hollywood pad by stripping away a few of the accessories and it becomes apparent that it’s easy to dial down the volume of Gucci’s menswear, should you wish to do so.

As for the product itself, once you look beyond the superficial impact it tends to make you see that the sartorial know-how we associate with made-in-Italy tailoring is all there. Tailored Gucci men’s pieces are beautifully put together, featuring full canvas construction, which helps the fit and drape. Often the interest is in the details – like the colours and patterns of the lining, or the subtle, or not so subtle, motifs incorporated into the fabric, some of which play on the house G, and mother of pearl buttons add a finishing touch of class.

The important thing here is to embrace the idea that menswear need not be anonymous. Michele would argue that all he is doing is stretching the envelope a little. For him, elegance and eccentricity should not be mutually exclusive: ‘I like to tell the story of elegance in completely arbitrary and unexpected ways. Perhaps elegance is something in the air that sometimes you are not even ready for. Male elegance can be unpredictable and strange.’ On planet Gucci,
it certainly can. Just ask Iggy and the boys.

gucci.com