Achille Bonita Oliva, an art critic, gets on the phone while waiting to mail a letter and calls Mr. Styles, who is hanging out in a garden (in jorts and a pink sports jersey), to chat about the compulsion to make art. Florence Welch (in fan-pleated hippie deluxe dress) creeps around the vintage store secreting notes in purses and pockets: “With the rain come the secrets,” “Tomorrow could be different.” Lu Han (in mint green glasses and a shell pink shirt) does some ironing and then quotes to Silvia via intercom: “Your body is like a pearl.”

In a news conference before the films were released, Mr. Michele said he wanted “to set clothes free,” that he didn’t want them “to be imprisoned in shops anymore.” The mini-series does that. His collection lives and breathes on the characters, sometimes suffocatingly so. There may be some who want to rush out to buy it because of that. And framing it as a series helps obscure the fact that amid all the dresses and skirts and shorts there aren’t really any new ideas — the series itself is the idea. Which is also the problem.

Because what there isn’t is any tension or sharp edges, the stuff that keeps you watching until the end. Other than the celebrity cameos: Mr. Van Sant in a plaid suit and Elton John-worthy specs included. At a time when the stakes for everyone are very high — even merely walking outside — the stakes for the characters seem confusingly low. Still, credit to Gucci for at least taking a risk in a time when other brands are hunkering down.

Besides, while Gucci may have failed at creating a cinematic fashion breakthrough, it succeeded at further empire building. By anointing, funding and bringing to public attention a wide variety of young designers under the Guccifest umbrella (Mr. Michele called it “a feast of fireflies”), the brand positioned itself as a beneficent kingmaker and cemented its status as creative tastemaker.

Source: New York Times

Powered by NewsAPI.org