Sabato de Sarno said he started the new Gucci pre-fall collection by looking back at Gucci’s history in the 1970s. According to text provided by the company, the designer added: “It was an immersion in the casual grandeur that we now recognize as part of Gucci’s DNA: everyday elegance, simple yet profoundly Italian, never ordinary, to wear. For this collection, we wanted to reimagine and reinterpret all of these elements in a way that feels fresh and relevant, without feeling nostalgic.”
Reinforcing the code without going too retro is a difficult balancing act for traditional brands. Because, almost by definition, the objects of today’s nostalgia were once totems of modernity. One of De Sarno’s key strategies to break this conformity is his continued experimentation with “wrong colors.” Clearly Gucci’s work is a combination that I could never have imagined seeing in the version (even if it wasn’t shot in black and white) that inspired these reinterpretations. . Notable examples here include the ribbed wool ‘trompe twinset’ (a single integrated garment) with lilac and lemon sequin edges; The showroom also had cotton candy faux fur in the same saccharine hue, but other garments had more variations on his core off-olive and berry burgundy conversations. Suitable for both genders, sharply tailored patch pockets were in more whimsical cuts and vaguely seductive micro-gingham color combinations.
Another trick that brought De Sarno’s starting point back to the future was to place the decidedly modern (boxy indigo denim) against the decidedly historic (herringbone black and brown cropped jackets). Similarly, floral scarf patterns sourced from the Florentine archives were reconfigured into cotton/wool jacquard work jackets and silk dresses. For women’s wear, we looked at the military, with its wide proportions and strong colors, and for men’s wear, we looked at the harmonious Ivy League. De Sarno specifically broke the spell of 1970s bell-bottom pants by adding a split from the front hem a few inches above the seam. Especially when it comes to flashing suede runners and two-tone horsebit loafers.
Lopapeisa-patterned sweaters were studded with sequins, and cropped shearlings were brightly dyed to reflect the same Icelandic material. The Prince of Wales checked raglan-sleeve overcoat shows a flash of burgundy beneath the collar and is cut with De Sarno’s favorite box pleats and two horizontal side splits at the back. It’s retro yet beyond. Much of this collection was a careful consideration of the silhouettes and visual texture details created to offer newness. There were also fat-a-mano and gestures to craft in macrame floral dresses and richly finished leathers.
De Sarno was a highly skilled, passionate and precise designer who evolved Gucci from its earlier everything, everywhere, all at once style. But as Karl Lagerfeld once said, “Fashion is about two things: evolution and its opposite.” Sometimes we play with the idea of inserting more confrontational shocks to compose the very particular delicacy of Gucci’s evolution that continues to shape it.
