Written by Guest Blogger Adrien Book
Since its creation in 1921, Gucci has excelled at defining the ultra luxe and fashionable, jet setting Italian aesthetic to heights never reached by any other house. With such a reputation, wonders were expected from Frida Giannini (Gucci’s creative director) as she presented the brand’s Men’s SS 2013 collection yesterday in Milan. And wonders we got, in the form of rocking combination of colours, simple styles and elegantly lined silhouettes.
Appointed head of accessory in 2004, then taking the top job in 2006 (replacing legendary designer Tom Ford), Rome-born Giannini described her creations as “bold, energetic, sharp”, allowing the Gucci man to “rediscover his chic Mediterranean side” in a rollicking mix of colour, print and clean-lined silhouettes.
To do so, she has used hot corals in every shade: raspberry, deep Mediterranean Sea blue and jade green as well as baby blue stripes and turquoise for a bit of coolness, tempered by Italian citrus hues of lemon yellow, tangerine as well as a gelato favourite: pistachio.
Model Clement Chabernaud opened the show in a leaf green suit and closed it in a silky matte black tux, and those two poles encompassed a “chromatic rush,” as the show notes so accurately described it. If the rush peaked in a blaze of crimson and orange (particularly a double-breasted jacket in raffia and a half-belted canvas coat that had the colour intensity that comes from overdyeing), it smoothed into a pleasurable buzz of blues that brought to mind a Mediterranean summer.
The trim jackets, the tapered, cuffed, slightly cropped pants, the knit polos, and the white worn with everything where a clear reminder of Gucci’s “dolce vitta”ideal, which clashes with one of Giannini’s earlier expeditions down the Via Veneto for Spring/Summer 2007.
Every look was grounded in the Florentine house’s iconic horse-bit loafers, celebrating their 60th birthday next year.
This season shows just how independent Giannini wants Gucci to become: As the majority of the menswear brands try to bend sportswear to the codes of a tailored silhouette, she sidelined sportswear to embrace a streamlined and refined style.
The collection is guaranteed to put you in a vacation state-of-mind and would make Tom Ford, the old master, proud.
