The first day of fashion week felt like a present you’ve been waiting for for a long time, but in the end you didn’t really get what you wanted. Three collections: the boringly beautiful Dior (rumoured to be the last coming from Maria Grazia Chiuri), very obvious Jacquemus and the one-time-only Gucci show in the French capital, which from the three felt the most exciting. The last part of Alessandro Michele’s French trilogy (we had the 1968 student protest inspired advertising campaign and the memorable, ‘on fire’ resort 2019 collection in Arles) ended up in Le Palace, the historically famous club that used to be the Mecca for such night-goers like Yves Saint Laurent, Bianca Jagger or Karl Lagerfeld. Through the film that was played in the beginning of the show, we learned that the experimental theatre of Leo de Berardinis and Perla Peragallo served as a reference for Michele’s spring-summer 2019 creations. The clothes couldn’t be more theatrically dramatic, in the designer’s signature, eclectic sense. The models seemed to have played historical dress-up in an old, costume treasure chest just before the show. The overall style was quintessentially Alessandro: vintage-y, opulent, at points simply kitsch. Even though the designer champions gender fluidity in his collections, which is wonderful especially at such a globally renowned brand like Gucci, I honestly think that his latest line-up dug too deep in the past. Additional nostalgia was brought by Jane Birkin, who in the middle of the show stood up from her front row seat and started to sing the melancholic Baby Alone in Babylone. Don’t get me wrong. The spectacle (it can be hardly called a ‘fashion show’) was a masterpiece. But the fashion part, even if tried hard to remind of Parisian clubbing chic, was monotonously Michele who we see every single season. Aesthetically I absolutely can’t relate to this collection. How about the true Gucci customer? I guess anything goes.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.