To hack it means to be successful, and Gucci—celebrating its 100 birthday this year—is undoubtedly so. What started in Florence as a small, family-owned business has become a global behemoth, experiencing exponential growth since the 1990s. When Alessandro Michele became creative director in 2015, he brought a new, more inclusive perspective. As the brand has noted, he has “introduced a new narrative, one that includes a remarkable emphasis on words.”
In the context of Gucci, logos are a vocabulary, one that Michele played with for fall, quoting Balenciaga, as he introduced the hacking lab. This provocative, postmodern project suggests that meaning and value are not absolute; it complements the designer’s belief that the past—which, like a good Roman, he’s constantly mining—is something fluid. “I appeal to such ability to reinhabit what has already been given,” he wrote in the show notes. “And to the blendings, the transitions, the fractures, the concatenations.”
The world Michele is building at Gucci is one without (many) boundaries, with room for cyborgs and latter-day Elton Johns. Michele’s preoccupation with the blurring of the authentic and the phony—he could take Hole’s lyrics, “I fake it so real / I am beyond fake,” as a motto—is topical in an age of fake news. But it also addresses the hunger for Gucci that has led to counterfeits on the mass level and smaller-scale bootlegging. He reckoned with the former with Guccy bags, the latter by partnering with the Harlem couturier Dapper Dan. “I pursue a poetics of the illegitimate,” Michele wrote. It’s not without irony that such freedom is perhaps only possible within the context of a luxury house.
Michele speaks of his hacking lab as allowing “thefts and explosive reactions.” Some of this pilfering is being done in the house archives. Putting ego aside, Michele has taken a generous view of the house heritage, building on the best of all that came before, thus reinforcing the brand equity in a way that is in keeping with how people live and dress today. Total looks were made redundant by social media; Michele understands that. In dialoguing with (and sometimes hacking) the past, he expands Gucci’s lexicon as the brand looks to the future. In honor of Gucci’s centennial and Michele’s new hacking-lab concept, we look back at how the brand’s history has been rewired over time.
GUCCI HACKING LAB, FEATURING BALENCIAGA
Taking things beyond the self-referential, Alessandro Michele created a hacking lab for fall 2021, where “thefts and explosive reactions happen.” The designer’s reworkings of Demna Gvasalia’s work for Balenciaga, he says, are “expressions of reverence and homage.”
RED VELVET
Looking back to Tom Ford–era Gucci, Michele gives a hard edge to soft velvet.
HEADSCARVES
Regardless of gender, it’s hip to be—or wear a—square. “There’s no more just being girls or boys today,” Michele has said. “Now we have to decide what we want to be.”
DAPPER DAN
The Harlem haberdasher pirated Gucci in the 1980s; when Gucci copied the copies in 2018, there was a backlash.
GUCCI-DAPPER DAN
In response to said backlash, Gucci backed the designer’s studio and launched a collaborative Gucci-Dapper Dan line.
THE JACKIE BAG
Introduced as the G1907 in the 1950s, this hobo bag was renamed the Jackie, after first lady Jacqueline Kennedy, in 1961.
SEVENTIES SIZZLE
Tom Ford first paid homage to Halston in his fall 1996 collection, and that kind of ’70s sizzle became a house code.
CUTOUTS
It takes two to play peekaboo.
SHIRT KING PHADE
Gucci made its way into not only hip-hop lyrics but also fashion and street art. The custom airbrushed pieces that Shirt King Phade, the self-described “pioneer of graffiti streetwear,” has been making since the 1980s created a link between tagging and logos and brought in popular culture as well.
FLORA
Inspired by Botticelli’s La Primavera, the flora print was created by Vittorio Accornero for Gucci in 1966 and used on a gift for Princess Grace of Monaco. It continues to bloom.
FLORALS
Tom Ford introduced supersized florals at Gucci in 1999; Michele cultivates them too. His first such print featured geraniums, and he’s added to the bouquet.
CYBORG CHIC
Jared Leto must have been listening when Michele declared, “We are the Dr. Frankenstein of our lives,” when presenting his Cyborg collection because the actor doctored his image for maximum impact.
HORSEY BITS
Equestrian tropes were, said Michele, “transfigur[ed] into a fetish cosmogony” for fall 2021.
BONDAGE
It was Tom Ford who first introduced kink to the Gucci codes.
BRAS
At Gucci, they are public shows of support.
CORSETRY
One of the ways Michele “plundered the sexual tension of Tom Ford” for this anniversary collection was through corsetry.
UNDIES
There are innumerable ways to Guccify oneself.
CLASSIC LOGO
Logos speak louder than words.
GUCCI MANE
In a meta move, the Italian house teamed up with the trap rapper in 2019.
BAMBOO BAG
Facing leather shortages amid World War II, Guccio Gucci replaced hide with bamboo. The rest is history.
MUST-HAVE SHOES
It’s easy to step lively in Gucci kicks, be they conservative loafers, rainbow stacked platforms, or fur-lined slides.
CAR AND DRIVER
Gucci prefers the fast lane.
GLITTER LOGO
This is how Gucci turns glitter into gold.
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DECO
Gucci was founded in 1921 during the Jazz Age, as referenced in these Deco-inspired dresses.
GUCCI +1
One of the ways the empire gives back is through arts sponsorship.
SNAKESKIN
Proof that slip dresses can be slithery.
SNAKES
Snakes have become such important members of the Gucci menagerie that they have become de facto logos.
DELUXE DENIM
Though known for leather work, Gucci has found a way to put its own mark on denim.
TRACK PANTS
Gucci’s jogger-inspired side-striped pants are for multitaskers.
LUGGAGE
The brand shows how to travel in style.
STRIPES
Gucci’s signature stripes are inspired by British saddlery.
