Gucci marks 100 years with exhibit on Michele code-breaking

Creative director Alessandro Michele has radically shifted Gucci codes and challenged fashion norms in 6½ years at the helm of the brand founded by Guccio Gucci as a travel bag company in Florence 100 years ago

FLORENCE, Italy -- Alessandro Michele has radically shifted Gucci codes and challenged fashion norms in his 6½ years as creative director of the brand founded by Guccio Gucci as a travel bag company in Florence 100 years ago. To mark the centenary, Michele has curated an exhibition in the Gucci Garden gallery, on Florence’s Piazza della Signoria, that underlines some watershed moments in his era. Those include an advertising campaign for perfume featuring a transgender model, an all-Black cast for the pre-Fall 2017 campaign and a lipstick campaign featuring everyday faces in all their imperfections. The exhibition will be reproduced in seven cities, including Shanghai, Tokyo, Sydney and Seoul. The 48-year-old designer credited CEO Marco Bizzarri, who tapped an unknown Michele from the Gucci design team to take over as creative director in January 2015, with allowing him leeway to go beyond the usual schemes driving the luxury business model.