How Alessandro Michele Changed Gucci and Fashion

It is the end of an era — not just for Gucci but for fashion all around the world.

Alessandro Michele and the magic he created for Gucci will remain etched in all of our memories. His exit from Gucci as its creative director sent shockwaves across the entire fashion industry. Michele was a senior accessories designer at Fendi before he joined Gucci as an “associate” to then creative director, Frida Giannini, in 2011. He was appointed as the Creative Director of Gucci in 2015 and Gucci has never been the same.

Tom Ford, the creative director of Gucci from 1994 to 2004, hired Michele to design handbags for Gucci. Tom Ford’s Gucci was definitely a sensation with hypersexuality and provocative ad campaigns. Frida Giannini continued Ford’s approach of sexuality but leaned more towards sophistication and the jetset lifestyle of high society. When Alessandro Michele debuted his Gucci menswear collection in 2015, we knew that the age of sexuality, minimalism, and gender stereotypes would now be a thing of the past.

From his very first show where he sent male models with long hair wearing pussy bow shirts and slippers down the runway, Michele has redesigned not just Gucci but many aspects of the fashion industry. All his collections seem to have been drawn from a deconstructed conversation with the zeitgiest, in which fashion should be liberating and not conforming. The new Gucci under Michele was for everyone regardless of lifestyle, gender, race, or nationality. Michele’s Gucci was about humanity and the emotions that come with it.

In an interview with The New York Times, Michele says, “Beauty doesn’t have limits. It doesn’t have rules.” He says that when he took over at Gucci, “fashion was talking about something that didn’t exist anymore, this kind of posh world of beautiful legs and beautiful hair. I was just talking about humanity. I was trying to find a new energy in the street, not in the jet set.” And energy was what he worked upon. The energy of the current times, the need of the people, and the future. He met young consumers where they were. Through his collections, it was almost like he was holding space for them — allowing them to be whoever they wanted to be.

The most striking thing about Michele who is one of the most sought-after designers of today is how he separates himself from the world of fashion as we know it. He does not care to be swallowed in the cycle of trends or of what’s trendy. “I want the separation.”, he says. Despite his extravagant choice of colors and maximalist patterns, his philosophy is rather simple — that fashion should not dictate who you chose to be or what you chose to wear, it should instead be setting you free. He says,”I wanted to show how I saw the world outside, not Photoshopped, not a world frozen in a Jurassic era, and a man that was different from the Alpha man.”

Of all the beautiful shows that he created during his reign in Gucci, the GUCCI Twinsburg, where he sent a pair of identical twins down the runway is by far the most beautiful shows I have ever watched. Through fashion, he explores the nature of duality that exists in all of nature.

We all express love in different ways. We love with our whole and broken hearts. For Alessandro Michele, his love language was this. He sees beauty in imperfection and in the brokenness and in the wholeness of things. His collections reflect this. In many interviews, you can hear him saying Fashion is a way of life, it is not just in the clothes we wear but in everything we do and everything that we are. The reason why he probably receives so much love from everyone in the world is that he gives love. One still needs a budget to buy a Gucci, but one does not need a single penny to find their true authenticity — and this is the space Alessandro Michele holds for all of us.

I am looking forward to his next journey and I’m grateful.