GUCCI GOES SEASONLESS
Lil Nas X, King Princess, Jane Fonda for Sustainability
Known for being the “pied piper of fashion,” Gucci Creative Director Alessandro Michele has found a way yet again to set the House of Gucci apart from the rest. During a virtual press conference this past May, Michele announced that Gucci would be slashing the number of yearly shows from five to two – a move that ultimately shifts Gucci to a sustainable and “seasonless” brand.
Michele declared the fashion week calendar obsolete and said he would no longer follow the hamster wheel schedule of Spring/Summer, Cruise/Resort, Pre-Fall, and Fall/Winter shows. Instead, Michele has placed Gucci’s emphasis on sustainability. On the brand’s Instagram page, Michele elaborated on how his shows (and surely the shows of other brands as well) focused too much on the performative, rather than the substantive. The pandemic lockdown of the previous few months has forced people in the fashion industry (as well as just about every other industry) to reimagine how certain things can be done and shift the focus to what is most important. For many in the fashion world, the focus is turning to leaner shows and sustainability.
Gucci’s announcement is particularly significant because no other fashion house of similar size and reach has come out in such support of a less wasteful fashion system. Dries Van Noten started the conversation when it led a number of independent designers in calling for a major overhaul of the fashion industry – namely an emphasis on fewer shows and less product. Just a month ago, Saint Laurent joined ranks and announced it would skip Paris Fashion Week this September and dictate its own schedule going forward.
A few weeks ago, Gucci cemented its commitment to sustainability with the launch of its Off the Grid collection. The focus of the collection is to gradually end the linear fashion system: items are shipped to store, items are sold to consumer, items are discarded after extensive use. Circularity is the goal here – giving garments as many lives as possible by using materials that can be broken down and recycled, thereby bending the linear model into a more circular system. Gucci’s Off the Grid collection features unisex daywear and accessories made from organic, recycled, or bio-based materials. No detail was overlooked, from the recycled plastic pocket snaps, to the organic cotton-lined sneakers, to the garments made from a material known as Econyl – a regenerated nylon that can be infinitely recycled.
To mark the collection’s launch, Gucci released a global campaign conceived by Michele, featuring the likes of Jane Fonda and Lil Nas X. Directed by Harmony Korine, the campaign and accompanying video portray Fonda and the others in a rustic treehouse in the middle of Los Angeles, creating a striking juxtaposition between conventional and unconventional. It essentially gives the impression that these people are making a stand for a new future for humankind – one where we feel a deeper connection to the outside world after being locked away from it for so long.
Although the conversation about fashion system overhaul and its offensively large carbon footprint has been happening on and off for years, 2020 has made it clear that this will now simply be an economic necessity. Both Kering and LVMH reported 15% drops in revenue for the first three months of the year, and cost reduction will be an unfortunate byproduct. It only makes sense then that fashion houses rethink the way they do things, and two of the most effective ways to do that involve a massive overhaul of antiquated fashion rules and embracing sustainability.
Sustainable product = sustainable future.
