Can the Influencers Save Gucci?
Honestly? Probably.
I waited patiently for influencers to finish their photo shoots in front of the elevators. I saw someone do an entire hotel gym workout wearing sunglasses emblazoned GUCCI. I witnessed risotto being passed around in bowls at an after party as though it was normal to stand in a make-shift nightclub, hold a porcelain dish, and eat from it with a spoon. I drank a terrific margarita. I have beheld so much Gucci “Ancora” red it’s as though no other red has ever existed. Ditto the brand’s “Jackie” bags. A Fendi Baguette? A Chanel 2.55? Loewe Flamenco? For two days, I did not know them.
I went to London for Gucci’s resort show and sat across-ish from Demi Moore and her tiny dog, whom I now know is named Pilaf, and whom she stroked in her front row seat like she was in the waiting room at the vet. Does the Tate Modern, where the show was held, normally allow dogs? Did Gucci have to negotiate with the museum, which was reportedly super-strict about the times at which Gucci could access the venue for rehearsals and so forth? Did the dog have a ticket and a wristband like the rest of us whose seat wasn’t Demi Moore’s lap?
Gucci brought me to the show, the first cruise collection for creative director Sabato De Sarno, in London. I learned that many fashion media outlets are able to make the rounds at the non-fashion month shows like these thanks to brand largesse because magazines don’t have the budgets otherwise. So these shows, Gucci’s included, is a great dance of logistics, ferrying people from wherever they live to London and then back home again with some dark red trinkets in their suitcases.
If anyone had immense pressure to deliver a stupendous cruise show, which are easy to forget exist, it was creative director Sabato De Sarno, who took over design at Gucci from Alessandro Michele last year. Gucci skipped out on the Met Gala this month in order to focus on this show, which took place one week later. The news about Gucci’s first-quarter sales being down 20 percent hung so heavily over the event that influencer Aimee Song even called it out in an Instagram caption of footage of the show: “Kering stock about to go crazy cus of @gucci by @sabatods 😍🤤🫠 The most perfect Cruise collection.”
Do influencers move markets? Well, the stock is up roughly 10 Euros, or 3 percent, since Monday.
The cruise show includes about 600 guests, while the biannual Milan Fashion Week shows host more than 1,000. Clients are an important part of the guest list at shows these days, the hope being that they’ll go to the event, get horny for the brand, and then swing by the store and drop tens of thousands of dollars.
For those of us (raises hand) who can’t splurge on Gucci clothing, there’s Gucci beauty, which this resort show blitz also promoted. I did hear — out of earshot of any Gucci representatives — that Gucci concealer is fantastic, so that’s my hot beauty tip of the year for you. People seemed to like the matte Ancora red lipstick Gucci included in swag bags, which also contained both a “mattifying primer” and “glow hydrating mist.” I acknowledge that I’m not someone who practices skincare outside of moisturizer, but I’m confused. Do we apply both at once so that we look as we usually do, only our skin is “by Gucci”? Are we supposed to be dull like a tasteful bedsheet or shiny like a glazed donut?
Contradictions were a metaphor for the show itself. Indeed, the show notes included a lengthy explanation of "dichotomies.” The collection wanted to be fun but was restrained from reaching its full fun flower by an atmosphere of utter seriousness. Imagine being at Lydia Tár’s brutalist apartment and a hipster showing up in an adorable floral-print suit. One thing is not like the other! And one thing can kind of bring the other down.
The show was held in the Tanks performance art space at the Tate Modern. Guests arrived to hundreds of fans packed behind barricades (there to see Paul Mescal in his billowy black blouse? Kate Moss? ME?). We wound our way into the concrete vastness of Tanks, where we drank white wine and overlooked words by Mustafa the Poet. (Once the guards let us downstairs, trust that this was not overlooked as a place to capture content.)
While we loitered, I mingled with fashion people and learned that Alaïa samples are so small that models can’t always fit into them. I couldn’t find anyone who likes what Maria Grazia Chiuri is doing at Dior, but I did hear stylists complain about how on earth they would find something by her to photograph. Also, sometimes the influencers who go on these trips can be as young as 19 or 20, so they have to stay away from alcohol, which is so ubiquitous that this may as well be a Real Housewives taping.
The show included music by Mark Ronson, who has created soundtracks for Gucci shows before. De Sarno has said that music is where his collections begin. If you’re thinking Barbie, don’t — the songs included a plodding, almost haunting version of Debbie Harry’s “Heart of Glass.” The models walked slowly, as though to convey the seriousness of this show in the great Tate Modern, outfitted with a poem and a few shrubs.
Some girls carried ludicrously capacious bags, which I guess are fun for editorials because I don’t know who wants to carry a bag that can fit 12 laptops. Some held both a handbag and a mesh bag, and I can only imagine what the latter’s price will be. All the models wore flats, which I always appreciate. Editors seemed to agree the ballet ones will probably be popular, and they paired pleasingly with the delicate pleated evening caftan dresses at the end. I also liked the embellished denim (not for normal people, but a celebrity will wear it somewhere and give the rest of us something to talk about). And while I don’t know that it needs a runway moment at this point, I can’t get mad at an oversized white shirt and loose jeans. De Sarno clearly got the memo about ankle socks being “for old people,” because he showed white socks trimmed with Gucci stripes that went over the ankle. The printed floral suit was adorable, and if I were the momager of an 18-year-old influencer, I’d make sure she was first in line to borrow it for next season’s show, come hell or high water.
While I didn’t love the opening slew of brown jackets, De Sarno made up for it with a bevy of outerwear at the end in a palette I can only describe as “Jordan almond.” The black and white one-armed dresses were a miss. They belong in Lydia Tar’s apartment.
Overall, the clothes were more joyful and fun than they’ve yet been under De Sarno, but the atmosphere sapped the clothes of happiness. I can only imagine the pressure on De Sarno right now (I was told in advance he wasn’t doing interviews), and it almost feels like executives are giving him feedback to prevent him from making it TOO FUN. If they are, this would be a miss. Stealth wealth feels like it’s fading, and taking ludicrously capacious bags down with it, like the ghost in the pool in my plane movie, Night Swim.
After the show came an after party, where a hulking disco ball spun slowly over a large GUCCI sign. Risotto was passed. Margaritas abounded. I am too un-fun and joyless myself for such things, and left after a few minutes.
On my walk out of the Tate, looking on my phone for my video of Demi Moore petting her dog to post on social media because this is why I went to journalism school, I heard a small squad of brisk, purposeful footsteps. The crowd was still there behind the barricades, looking for stars, and a few called out, “Dua!” She is taller than I expected and seemed eager to get the hell out of dodge.
“Billions rest on that,” a veteran critic said to me when I reached the sidewalk. The crazy thing is — that critic is right.
Loose Threads will return in Back Row’s next issue… In honor of this special dispatch, here are some overheard quotes from the Gucci show.
“I took a pill — thank you — and then I passed out.”
“Fuck integrity.”
“The BEST part of those trips is you don’t have to go to a fashion show!”
“It’s such a RuPaul’s Drag Race, when you look at the Vatican.”
“I’m being hounded by this social media person”
Woman 1: “I have on slippers.” Woman 2: “Good for you. Clever choice.”
Where's the sex appeal? Where's the sex?
I don’t get who Gucci’s target audience even is at this point.
I wasn’t an Alessandro fan but he definitely had a point of view and a real customer in mind. The last couple Gucci shows just feel like him and Tom Ford’s greatest hits mixed with whatever has worked for other brands lately.