Stanley Kubrick’s meticulous eye for filmmaking serves as the inspiration for Gucci’s latest campaign; after all, they say imitation is the highest form of flattery
Released today, Gucci’s latest campaign for Autumn/Winter 2022 features a cinematic short film and series of images reimagining scenes from Stanley Kubrick’s distinct oeuvre. The rule-breaking collection, made in collaboration with Adidas and aptly titled Exquisite, is lensed here by photographic duo Mert and Marcus in an ode to the “eclectic and dissonant” powers of both cinema and clothing.
“Since [Stanley Kubrick] was a diviner of vision, his works are as recognisable as the Sistine Chapel, The Virgin of the Rocks or The Simpsons,” says Gucci’s creative director Alessandro Michele. “Manipulating his images, inside a brand new semantic framework, is like hacking La Gioconda. Plus the inspiration and the empathy [are] only possible through the fictional cinematographic machine.”
Following Gucci’s Autumn/Winter 2021 collection Aria – which confounded expectations by ‘hacking’ Balenciaga – the Autumn/Winter 2022 collection mingled high and low by Gucci-fying the sporty motifs of Adidas, juxtaposing and fusing the codes of two differing labels, and in turn breaking the codes of high fashion innovation. “A garment is not, and never will be, just a piece of fabric,” Michele continues. “It’s rather the means through which we are able to unfold who we really decide to be, it’s how we shape our desires.” By reframing the garments in a cinematic narrative, Michele continues his commitment to imagining clothing with a fantastical sensibility, full of meaning and imagination – just like stories and film.
With set design by Gideon Ponte – who worked on American Psycho – and art direction by Christopher Simmonds, the campaign film sees precise replicas of scenes from Kubrick’s pioneering works: The Shining (1980), Eyes Wide Shut (1999), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), A Clockwork Orange (1971) and Barry Lyndon (1975). “[Clothes] turn into highly imaginative functional prosthesis, and they do so to tell a story,“ says Michele. “A story that shatters, enchants, tortures, ignites. Because it’s the story of the human that dwells in each and every one of us. As Stanley Kubrick knew too well.”