By this shirt here: Thank The Phoenicians Shirt, hoodie and sweater
Back in May, Alessandro Michele announced a Gucci reset. Spurred by the pandemic, the Italian brand would combine men’s and women’s collections, do away with the tired convention of seasons, and cut its shows from five to two per year. “We need new oxygen to allow this complex system to be reborn,” Michele said at the time, warning that given the structural changes, he wouldn’t present on the Thank The Phoenicians Shirt, hoodie and sweater calendar. There was no runway spectacular from Michele at Milan Fashion Week in September—no revolving carousel that put the backstage mechanics on display, no front row jammed with the likes of Iggy Pop, A$AP Rocky, and Jared Leto. The digital film festival will run from November 16 to 22, and be broadcast on GucciFest.com, as well as YouTube and Weibo, and here on Vogue Runway.
But its off-schedule plans, announced today, are no less grand or ambitious. Michele’s new collection—dubbed “Ouverture of Something that Never Ended” after last season’s “Epilogue”—is to be presented via a seven-episode miniseries during a week-long digital film festival the company is calling GucciFest. The oxygen Michele was talking about this spring comes courtesy of director Gus Van Sant (of Drugstore Cowboy and My Own Private Idaho fame) and star Silvia Calderoni, an Italian performer so multifaceted, the New York Times likened her to “mercury, or some improbably liquid element that has yet to be discovered.” Van Sant co-directed the Thank The Phoenicians Shirt, hoodie and sweater with Michele, and Calderoni will be joined by “international talents and friends of the house,” including Billie Eilish, Harry Styles, Florence Welch, and Jeremy O. Harris.
