Gucci stops "colonizing" and "worn-out" runway seasons

Gucci wants to focus on just two collections per year. By abandoning anything in between, the Kering subsidiary joins a growing list of major names in fashion, who want to make the fashion industry more sustainable after the coronavirus crisis.

Ditching a “worn-out ritual”

In a series of Instagram posts, creative director Alessandro Michele says he wants to “abandon the worn-out ritual of seasonalities and shows”. Rather, he wants to “regain a new cadance, closer to [his] expressive call”. What this really means, is that Gucci will organise just two meetings per year.

Michele does not shy away from big words, saying that he would “like to leave behind the paraphernalia of leitmotifs that colonized our prior world: cruise, pre-fall, spring-summer, fall-winter. I think these are stale and underfed words, labels of an impersonal discourse that lost its meaning.” Instead, the director finds inspiration in music, calling his new projects “symphonies, rhapsodies, madrigals” and so on.

However, experts doubt whether this is really such a momentous change. In 2019, the label already organised just three shows, Business of Fashion writes. Michele had already decided to reduce his number of shows by uniting men’s and women’s events.

Hubris and greed

Gucci’s decision is in line with other initiatives in the past two months, leading a growing number of luxury brands, department stores and fashion designers to put forward a world in which simplicity and sustainability take over from hubris and greed.

Giorgio Armani was the first to plead for a simpler fashion industry, moving the winter season to the actual winter again. He was followed by a number of major names in the industry who, lead by Dries Van Noten, called for concrete and immediate reform of the industry. Yves Saint Laurent (also part of the Kering group) has also joined the call.