DifferentMagazine

“The historical layering
has created a serendipitous
aesthetic - and had
informed Michele’s love of
graceful juxtapositions.”
on Alessandro Michele’s love for churches
made in Staffordshire, England, in the nineteenth century. The
dogs had been introduced into the garden by Michele. (He has
an extensive collection of the figurines.) On a large table, there
were boxes filled with ribbons, buttons, strips of lace, and other
trims.
Models appeared in the new dresses. One gorgeous evening
gown, in cinnamon-and-sapphire-colored silk woven with intricate
patterns, had a dramatic scooped collar and a high neck.
It simultaneously suggested the British Raj and the first Queen
Elizabeth. Another dress, fashioned from translucent pink chiffon
with a high neck and long sleeves, was demure and daringly
revealing at the same time. “Bellissimo!” Michele exclaimed as
he adjusted the collar and positioned black appliqué patches
around the neck. At times, he can seem like a haberdasher with
obsessive-compulsive disorder.
“One of the themes is the Victorian Age,” Michele explained.
Pink is one of his favorite colors, and he scours antique stores in
London to look for evocative shades. One particularly Victorian
design was a long ivory dress, whose sleeves alone might have
served as the calling card for a seamstress seeking employment.
I counted at least six different needlework techniques—including
smocking, pin pleats, and rosettes—that descended from
puffed shoulder to netting-frilled wrist.
Adjusting the music that was emanating from the speaker of
his iPhone—the Smiths—Michele got up from his seat to make
more refinements. He snipped off a black velvet bow that was
attached to a dress’s neckline and moved it a few inches down
the breastbone. After examining a black-and-gold dress, he
grabbed bits of black velvet and stiff tulle and improvised a pair
of cap sleeves, creating a striking sculptural shape. Sometimes
he took out his phone to snap a photograph of a detail.
Michele has more than seventy-five thousand followers on
Instagram, and his account is unusually esoteric. A closeup of
his own feet inside black Mary Janes with silver snake buckles is
intermixed with images of albino peacocks, Baroque sculptures,
and seventeenth-century paintings. (In December, the Web site
Fashionista declared, “Why the Hell Isn’t Everyone Following
Alessandro Michele on Instagram?”)
Photographs from
Gucci.com, Cruise
2017 runway,
held at Westminster
Abbey, an
unlikely location
for a fashion
show
In the studio, Michele’s manner was collaborative rather than
imperious. After surveying the dresses, he and Davide Renne,
the designer of the women’s ready-to-wear collection, sifted
through bolts of fabric—a visual migraine of chinoiserie,
psychedelia, and plaid—making selections for designs that had
yet to be conceived. Michele admired a bright-green print featuring
elephants, monkeys, and birds. Another fabric consisted
of the Union Jack blotted with black silhouettes of parrots, like
images from a Rorschach test. “For the Queen,” Michele said,
with a smile.
There was a decent chance that the Queen might, in fact, become
aware of Michele’s Cruise collection. Gucci had secured
for its show the unlikely location of Westminster Abbey, which
has been the site of every English coronation since 1066. This
was the first time that the abbey would be hosting a fashion
show. Even though Gucci would be occupying the cloister,
rather than laying a runway along the length of the spectacular
Gothic nave, the choice had made headlines in England when it
was announced, in February.
“I was thinking to have a very significant place in London,”
Michele told me over lunch. We were not far from the Palazzo
Alberini, at a favorite restaurant that is owned by Katia Minniti,
the Gucci designer. (She emerged from the kitchen as we
were giving our order, still in red socks and gold heels. Michele
recommended the pasta cacio e pepe, a Roman specialty, but
ate tofu with vegetables.) He told me that he had first considered
presenting the show in a Victorian building on Southampton
Row that used to house the Central St. Martins school of
art. During the nineties, his formative years, many important
British designers had studied at the college. “I was thinking how
great it would be for a brand like Gucci to show in the same
school where Alexander McQueen finished his work, or John
Galliano—there is still a soul in this place,” he said. “But after
16 the difference in philosophy