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.