The New Sexual Politics of Gucci’s Ad Campaign
Gucci Pre-Fall 2015, photographed by Glen Luchford.
Alessandro Michele, the recently-appointed creative director at Gucci, has only held the position since January and after showing collections for both men and women, we are finally starting to see how the change will impact the image of the company.
In recent seasons, Gucci’s campaigns mostly featured models standing against a plain background, making it more “product-based” than the “feelings-based” ads that have become de rigueur in some young labels like J.W. Anderson and Patrik Ervell. The new pre-fall campaign, photographed by Glen Luchford and styled by Joe McKenna, finds a middle ground in between both trends with a narrative story that manages to focus on the product while simultaneously invoking a sense of time and place within the candid photographs. In the images, we see models Julia Hafstrom and Alexandra Elisabeth staring/talking to a man, his chest bare and his face unseen. The other images are slightly more abstract, a woman on a couch, only her legs and her hand—holding a bag—can be seen, and (presumably) the same man as the other images, sitting on the couch taking off his sweater, which obscures his face. Everyone is bored, no one is doing anything and yet, all movements and body placements are packed with meaning.
Gucci Pre-Fall 2015, photographed by Glen Luchford.
Perhaps most interesting about the campaign is the fact that the typical “male gaze” that is often the lens through which all advertisements are made is not present in this one. We are watching these women, looking at a man. The women are fully dressed and sit and lay on the couch, clearly marking that it is their space. The man is visiting, he is perhaps not important, just another body on the scene. It’s not hard to imagine the two models, standing in front of the couch in a wide stance with their arms crossed, watching the man undress on the couch.
Gucci Pre-Fall 2015, photographed by Glen Luchford.
In a very short time, Michele has made a certain kind of loose, sexual ambiguity the trademark at Gucci, but the fact that it comes with a side of quasi-intellectual female sexual liberation is just the icing on the cake. We can’t wait to see where he’ll take this.
Gucci Pre-Fall 2015, photographed by Glen Luchford.
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