Gucci
Founded in Florence in 1921 Gucci has has built over the years a catalog of genuinely iconic trademarks that have helped the brand penetrate mainstream culture like no other Italian label in history.
From 2015 to 2021 Matteo Menotto has been exclusive designer at Gucci, coordinating prints for Men’s ready to wear and accessories. Working closely with creative director, rtw design team and merchandising on a vast range of designs. Attending to fabric to sketch meetings, shows’ preparations, looks definition and post-show edits for all printed clothing categories.
YEAR // 2015-2021
WEBSITE // www.gucci.com
Images reported here are for sole information purposes and belong to brand’s advertising campaigns: SS2019 - FW 2019 - SS 2020 - FW 2018 - SS 2016
Détournement
GUCCI SPRING 2016 READY-TO-WEAR
The 10-cent word that defined today's Gucci show was détournement. It essentially means recontextualization. Is a granny's pussy-bow blouse still a pussy-bow if a willowy teenage boy is wearing it? Or is it, as today's show notes claimed, "a renewal of possibility"? The slightly impenetrable tone of those notes actually echoed the Situationists, the French anarcho-philosophers who were so inspirational to Malcolm McLaren in his creation of the Sex Pistols. And a similarly transgressive instinct was operating on the Gucci catwalk. Asked about the religious symbolism in his collection, he talked about, "the young generation as the real saints of the new world."(…) And youth and age are both so much more liberating than that long, put-upon stretch in between. (…) Détournement pursues a new idea of beauty. And here it was, lush but confrontational. The New Punk. by TIM BLANKS - Vogue.com
The Alchemist’s garden
GUCCI FALL 2017 READY-TO-WEAR
Michele wasn’t making any claims that his first amalgamated female/male collection show for Gucci was a bolt from the blue, a revolutionary turn against the last season. On the contrary, he finds it easier to focus when both sexes are considered together. “This is always my world. I want to swim in my ocean,” he said, wearing a yellow Gucci-logo T-shirt and a pale baseball cap as he showed people around. He feels it’s wrong to have to “tell a new little story” every season, he said. “We need to let the world not go so fast. If you’re doing that, you don’t reflect, and in these times we need to reflect more.” (…) All the complexity he marshals at Gucci ultimately ends up as straightforward, commercially attractive clothes and accessories, intelligible Italian luxury desirable the world over. by SARAH MOWER - Vogue.com
Paradoxical creatures
GUCCI FALL 2018 READY-TO-WEAR
A procession of transhumans, walking in trancelike step through a suite of operating theaters: Bolted together from the clothing of many cultures, they were Alessandro Michele’s metaphor for how people today construct their identities—a population undergoing self-regeneration through the powers of tech, Hollywood, Instagram, and Gucci.(…) the reference had been taken from his reading of the feminist philosopher Donna Haraway’s 1984 “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century.” The show radiated cross-cultural meanings, a clashing of symbols by a brand that has markets to charm across the globe. by SARAH MOWER - Vogue.com
Noah’s Ark
GUCCI RESORT 2019 READY-TO-WEAR
Candles flickering beside ancient stone tombs, a line of fire running down the dusty pathway and a church silhouetted against the dying light - that was the atmospheric Gucci Cruise 2019 show, held in the southern French city of Arles. (…) The fact that it had been raining buckets all day in Arles, but the heavens closed just for the length of the show, made it an extraordinary feat on every level. And that’s not to mention the more than 100 outfits, including historic capes, schoolgirl jackets, a bodice made out of bones, wisps of feathers, bouquets of dying flowers, and a sense that mourning regalia had switched from traditional black to pink – as well as the realisation that menswear is in a new, fiery, gender-neutral world. by SUZY MENKES - Vogue.com
Cultural heritage
GUCCI PREFALL 2019 READY-TO-WEAR
Gucci’s Pre-Fall collection was presented without the fanfare to which the brand’s global audience has become accustomed. Indeed, it was a rather straightforward affair. As always every outfit was treated as a sort of mini story unto itself, as if it were born out of a fashion egg already perfectly formed: styled, accessorized, and ready to fly out of stores at rocket speed. Prominent styles included caftans—the best in exotic, rich brocades—and three-piece printed suits in which blazers were worn over elongated tunics for a new layered silhouette. Overall, the tailoring was strong: sharp-shouldered and slim-fitted with an ’80s flavor. by TIZIANA CARDINI - Vogue.com
Gucci Prêt-À-Porter
GUCCI FALL 2019 READY-TO-WEAR
The show was harsh and destabilizing in the extreme, not unlike the world outside the Gucci hub, complete with lions gnashing their teeth on the soundtrack and lights pulsating brightly enough to make your retinas scream. Then there were the masks: Jason Voorhees masks, fetish store masks with 2-inch-long spikes, a stupendous brass eagle with talons clutching the jawline. At the press conference afterwards, Michele explained his fascination, saying, “A mask is hollow but also full.” It conceals and reveals; it’s a defense and a welcome sign; disorienting and its opposite. Many of the pieces were unfinished, with basting stitches tracing seams or the outline of outsize lapels, and raw edges elsewhere. Pierrot collars, in contrast, seemed to speak of childhood whimsy and innocence, as did the nonsense words ice, lolly, and sucker that appeared throughout. by NICOLE PHELPS - Vogue.com
The ritual
GUCCI FALL 2020 READY-TO-WEAR
Around these swirled many other references plucked and refreshed from multiple time zones. Grannyish bolero hats (we were in an ersatz bullfighting arena) and a prim powder blue day coat, David Bowie-ish metallic flares, Kurt Cobain-ish grungy ’90s denim and oversized knits, and a great Courtney Love-ish leopard-print coat made you suspect that maybe Michele was looking at some of the characters who helped form his own perception of masculinity. Two bags, very Gucci, featured the word fake on one side and not on the other, while T-shirts created with the punk rocker Richard Hell (whom Michele said he first met as a teenager) read “impatience” and “impotence.” (Remember how frustrating it could be to be a kid?) A puffer, some bags, a pair of shoes, and some cutesy Peter Pan–collared dresses featured classic Liberty-print florals—some of the bags read Liberty too. by LUKE LEITCH - Vogue.com
Aria
GUCCI FALL 2021 READY-TO-WEAR
Gucci turns 100 this year. Michele’s new collection is a celebration of that milestone, and in his fashion it’s a fabulously idiosyncratic one. Not unexpectedly it reexamines the house’s history; this is standard operating procedure on anniversaries. Michele picked up on Gucci’s equestrian codes, giving them a fetishistic spin—one model cracked their whip as they made their way down the runway. He also reprised one of Tom Ford’s greatest hits, the red velvet tuxedo from fall 1996 with tweaks including new, more pronounced shoulders, a leather harness, and versions for both men and women. More surprising were the pieces that Michele lifted—or “quoted,” to use the company parlance—from Demna Gvasalia’s Balenciaga, another brand in the Kering stable. (…) François-Henri Pinault, Kering’s chairman and CEO: “I have seen how [Alessandro and Demna’s] innovative, inclusive, and iconoclastic visions are aligned with the expectations and desires of people today,” he said. “Those visions are reflected not only in their creative offerings but also in their ability to raise questions about our times and its conventions.” The industry will be watching how, with whom, and where this concept goes next. by NICOLE PHELPS - Vogue.com