Alessandro Michele‘s phenomena at Gucci needs no introduction. I think his striking, even terrific style, has reached its limit a long time ago, and keeps on adding up with no end in sight. According to the brand’s creative director, ‘creation’ in itself is a poetic act, and I have nothing against that. But I found his spring-summer 2018 creation not poetic, but, hmm… overcrowded. Don’t get me wrong, Alessandro wouldn’t be him if he did something not ornamental, and I absolutely get that – it’s his aesthetic. But if that collection was a “map of signs to learn to live the world poetically, going beyond its contingency and standardizing monotony”, don’t be surprised if you lose your way with it. I find Ann Demeulemeester poetic. Yohji Yamamoto and Comme Des Garçons are insanely poetic. But Michele’s extremely lush clash of young Elton John’s tour costumes and intergalactic UFO-femme gowns feels rather operatic and dramatic, than a fashion poetry. It’s a hard study of costume with a capital C, not self-expression liberation. Shortly, if you thought that the last Gucci show was too much, you were wrong. This one is too too much. But no fears, the next season will be even more more.

P.s. I think that monotony is lethal. But isn’t Gucci already too predicatable? It’s a kitsch monotony, in fact.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.