Jesus, John Lennon and Alessandro Michele
This piece was originally written in February 2021.
The Italian designer draws many parallels with the hippie subculture; does that make him a good fit for today’s social climate?
Alessandro Michele resembles a West Coast hippie, albeit an impeccably groomed one. Bearded, with his long, wavy, dark hair, fingers heavy with rings collected from around the world, chains upon chains around his neck and his personal style (cotton T-shirts and jeans under plaid shirts or woven textiles like San Francisco hippies and suits covered in flora and fauna like the Swinging London variety,) Michele evokes hippie icons like John Lennon, Jerry Garcia, Janis Joplin and – arguably – Jesus. His designs, too, harken back to the 60s counter-culture in his psychedelic florals, ruffled men’s shirts, loose flowing dresses, paisley print and brightly-coloured suits. The hippie-isms are especially abundant in his last two collections; perhaps he has leant into it so heavily recently because he was feeling the spirit of change. After all, these collections came after Michele’s cutting-down of Gucci’s fashion schedule last May.
Screenshot from British Pathé's 1967 London Street Scenes
Aside from his resemblance to the hippies, Michele’s transformation of Gucci draws parallels with the subversive reactions of youth subcultures to their parents’ generation. Beatniks and – later – hippies embraced the ideas of anti-capitalism and anti-materialism partly in reaction to “the golden age of capitalism”, a period of economic expansion post World War II. Long-haired pot-smokers retreated from mainstream society, determined to find something more to life than the values that had been instilled in them: job, marriage, family, economic and material success. (Fitting, considering the current disillusionment with our late-stage capitalist society, only exacerbated by the pandemic.) Mirroring this transformation between generations, the eccentric maximalism of Michele’s Gucci “could not be further removed from the sleekly controlled understatement of his predecessor Frida Giannini” wrote Hamish Bowles in a 2015 profile on the designer.
Look from Gucci's Resort 2021 collection, ph. Mark Peckmezian
The “happenings” of the hippies and counter-culture were multi-media experiences with music, poetry, light shows, films and artists of all kinds, selling food, underground publications, posters and clothes. In a similar way, Michele’s Gucci is not just fashion shows, he has created a universe around the clothes to immerse the audience in the brand. Gucci is a whole experience: take Gucci Fest, the week-long fashion film festival which took place last November; the Gucci podcast, which has been running since 2018; the Gucci Arcade on their mobile app which gives fans access to a number of games, and the #GucciModelChallenge on TikTok, which started organically but was embraced by the brand. Gucci Equilibrium, for its part, is a commitment by the brand “to generate positive change for people and our planet” which is appropriate considering the Western ecology movement had its beginning in 60s counter-culture.
In 2021, the naked body isn’t the revolution that it was in the 60s. Today’s sexual liberation is less about frolicking in the nude and more a subversion of gender roles. From his very first menswear show (A/W 2015), Michele put boys in pussy-bow blouses and sheer tops. Granted, one can’t talk about androgyny without mentioning the Glam era, which made the biggest impact and whose icons include David Bowie and Marc Bolan – both former hippies. Even so, 60s counter-cultural style put the concept of unisex on the agenda. Frilly and typically feminine shirts were a staple of Swinging London: Johnny Moke, a sales assistant at Granny Takes A Trip, (the Kings Road shop which defined the city’s style at the time and had many high-profile customers) said, “We used to cut up blouses and dresses and turn them into shirts or tops for men.”
Left: Earl Cave in Gucci in 2018, Getty Images; right: vintage Granny Takes A Trip suit, ph. Amy Haben, 2015
Taking after his father – described as hippie and shaman-esque – Michele set out his vision of “a hippie Renaissance idea of fashion” in a 2015 Harper’s Bazaar article. The same piece had singer Florence Welch exclaiming: “We realised that our aesthetic is Jimi Hendrix mixed with an old lady!” A look that draws parallels with the counter-culture both in terms of Jimi’s psychedelic fashions and the fact that – according to author Barry Miles – hippie girls “looked for old-fashioned, second-hand dresses in thrift stores, favouring worn, soft fabrics like lace and velvet and often opting for long granny dresses.” When it came to thrifted treasures, if they were worn-looking then even better. Michele embodies this by washing many of his fabrics to give them a patina. With his insatiable habit for vintage-collecting, he mirrors the hippies’ love for thrifting: “Recycling the past was part of how hippies sought to expand their minds, to find better ways of living, as they dreamed up a utopian future,” wrote Greg Cook, writer and aesthetic researcher, in 2013.
Florence Welch for Gucci S/S21, ph. Gus Van Sant
Psychedelia is entwined with hippiedom, but has inspired fashions separate to the cotton, linen and sandals of the back-to-nature West Coast set. Cross-pollination across the pond (see: Beatlemania) created a decade of eclectic style, interpreted differently by designers. Anna Sui’s recent A/W21 collection was more Swinging London, taking inspiration from the psychedelic fashions of The Beatles’ Apple Boutique and 1968 film, Wonderwall (The Fool, a Dutch collective, having a hand in both the shop and the film’s costumes.) Meanwhile Etro rarely strays from the typical West Coast hippie’s cultural references: kaftans, paisley print, indigenous textiles (such as Navajo or Peruvian), blanket capes, Afghan coats, turquoise jewellery. Cultural appropriation? Possibly. Hippie? Most definitely. Their latest campaign, Caravan of Love, evokes the Magic Bus trip of 1964 that started it all, although the amalgamation of prints and colours makes it more caricature than accurate re-creation of the folkie, nature-loving hippies.
The nature of popular culture means that artistic exaggeration – from films, in fashion – can become more ingrained in public consciousness than the original people themselves. Though hippies may be misunderstood by most people, the message of the late 60s counter-culture lives on. Questioning the government and the “establishment” is now standard, particularly amongst young people. Especially in light of the events of 2020, these sentiments can only get stronger, just as the Vietnam War united different tribes of the Love Generation in a common goal. Go to any UK university and you’ll quickly come across a left-wing, vegan, horoscope-reading, vintage-loving, anti-capitalist, protest-going arts kid – with or without the clothes to match. The counter-culture has become the template for many proceeding anti-establishment youths, meaning that even if the new-age hippies now exist outside of mainstream society, the original spirit is very much alive.
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