Floria Sigismondi on Bringing the Breath Back to Fashion With Gucci’s Aria Film
Alessandro Michele often refers to Harry Styles as his brother, signifying a bond deeper than art, fashion, or commerce. Floria Sigismondi, the Italian-Canadian artist, must be Michele’s sister then.
Sigismondi got her start in the ’90s directing moody, cinematic music videos for Björk, David Bowie, and Marilyn Manson. Eventually she moved on to feature films like 2010’s The Runaways and her upcoming The Silence of Mercy, as well as painting and photography. She’s partnered with Michele before on the short film 72 Hours in André Balazs’ Chateau Marmont With Kenneth Anger and on videos for Gucci Gifting and Gucci Bloom. Like the Italian designer she is an expansionist: Just as Michele proved that anything under his eye can be Gucci-fied, so does Sigismondi bring her haunting, tender spirit to all of her own work.
With Aria, Michele and Sigismondi tried to crack the very of-the-moment question: How can you make a runway show as thrilling online as it is in-person? Their solution wasn’t a direct translation of vibes. Instead, Sigismondi brought her music video expertise, injecting both a pulse (abetted by the array of pop songs that accompanied the film) and a narrative.
The video begins outside the Savoy Club, a nod to London’s Savoy Hotel where Guccio Gucci got the idea to launch a luggage business. Inside, models walk a camera-lined runway toward a paparazzi pit before flinging open the club doors on a phantasmagoric idyll where they commune with each other and the local animals. A reemergence narrative? Perhaps, or just the affirmation that nature and togetherness prevail over all else.
Gucci Aria. Soundtrack by Alessandro Michele, mixed by Lawrence Rothman.
Here, Sigismondi discusses the collaboration and shares some secrets of making a great fashion film.
Steff Yotka: You’ve worked with Alessandro and Gucci several times. How did you first meet him and what attracted you to his work?
Floria Sigismondi: The first thing we did together was Gucci Gifting, shot in the Garden of Ninfa, just outside of Rome. I had just started to be familiar with what he was doing with the house; he had just put a breath of fresh air into the fashion. I was just so impressed with the incredible playfulness. It was just something I was immediately drawn to, absolutely mesmerizing.
My mother actually grew up by the sewing machine. My parents were opera singers, and my mother was also a seamstress. She would watch The Sonny and Cher Show and then she would make Cher’s dress the next week. I love fashion, I love the idea of self-expression, and what I love about what Alessandro does is that you can take the collection, take it apart, and remake it as yours. It then becomes part of your personality and it tells your story—[wearing his clothes] you never feel like you’re dressed in something that doesn’t belong to you. That’s what I really love about what he does.
I came across this story about your parents and your mom being a seamstress earlier today and thought you and Alessandro must’ve had similar upbringings because he was also raised in a creative home. You must have had an instant connection with him.
Yes. And his mother is from Pescara, which is where I was born. Every time we are together he always laughs at my Pescarese accent! Alessandro’s father would also play the guitar every day for an hour. My father just passed away in February, and I was talking to Alessandro about how we lost the music in the house. He had a very similar story when his father passed away, the idea of how someone can bring sort of music to the family and you don’t know it until it’s gone. There’s something beautiful about that.
That’s a beautiful connection; I’m so sorry for your loss.
He lives on. He was 96 and he’s got a big personality that lives on.
