Gucci’s Exquisite campaign for Fall Winter 2022 reveals Alessandro Michele’s cinephile tendencies, celebrating the works of film virtuoso Stanley Kubrick in a hauntingly beautiful way.
Fashion and cinema are twin flames. Both story-telling mediums have always enriched each other in the process of growth through history, sharing a single-minded pursuit to bring fantasies to life in a way no better understood and appreciated today by Gucci’s creative director Alessandro Michele.
In Gucci’s Fall Winter 2022 campaign, titled Exquisite, Michele plants the Fall Winter 2022 collection and pieces from the House’s collaboration with Adidas into iconic scenes from films by cinema extraordinaire Stanley Kubrick.
Recreated even to nailing the likeness of the models to the characters of classic Kubrick works, he also tastefully alienates his own creations (albeit in a manner still cognisant of the setting of the stills) to invoke a feeling of truth that evolves into the uncanny — all in true cinephile fashion.
In an undeniable show of Michele’s love for the auteur and his philosophies, the lengthy press note, with exacting detail, writes: “(The) adidas gown, that had already lost its status of sportswear to become a Victorian costume, appears as a new character in the script of Barry Lyndon. The dress designed by Laura Whitcomb, wearing which Madonna grabbed the New York spotlight in the nineties, fits in the gothic scenes of The Shining.
The mysterious darkness of the enigmatic ritual of Eyes Wide Shut embraces venus in fur, embellished with sensual bourgeois pearls. And more, the 90’s shoes with a fetish flavour explode through the frames of A Clockwork Orange. Finally, the dreamiest evening dress dangled in soft tulle ruches bursts into the aseptic and dystopian space of the Discovery One in 2001: A Space Odyssey.”
Imaged by Mert & Marcus, the campaign also comes with a short video that brings those readapted scenes with the Fall Winter 2022 collection to life. Michele worked closely with Warner Bros. as well as costume designers Milena Canonero and Charlotte Walter for a precise and accurate portrayal of each scene — successfully nailing the essence of the film.
If that is not indicative enough of Michele’s adoration of the filmmaker’s artistry and philosophies, it at least shows a resonance of their approach towards creativity; if fantasies are all based on the real, everyday, human experience, then they, by extension, only seek to give us a means to objectively observe life through the safe filter of humour, hysteria or immateriality. With Kubrick, through cinema, and Michele, a cinematic approach to fashion.
This is why the morphing of Kubrik’s distinctive visual style with Michele’s own retro-future luxury aesthetic is so seamless, their shared philosophy no better elaborated than by Michele himself.
“This involvement generates a change of state that is very significant for my job: clothes get closer to bare life again. They turn into highly imaginative functional prostheses, and they do so to tell a story. A story that shatters, enchants, tortures, and ignites. Because it’s the story of the human that dwells in each and every one of us.”
Creative Director: Alessandro Michele
Art Director: Christopher Simmonds
Photographers & Directors: Mert & Marcus
Make up: Thomas De Kluyver
Hair: Paul Hanlon
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