Milan Fashion Week: Gucci creates buzz with baby dragons, snakes, and replica heads

Italian fashion house Gucci dazzled fans with a presentation featuring baby dragons, snakes and models carrying replica heads in their arms in a Milan catwalk show on Wednesday that explored the concepts of creativity and identity.

Gucci’s creative director Alessandro Michele framed his display – one of the most sought after tickets at Milan Fashion Week – in a cold, sterile and claustrophobic space that replicated an operating theatre.

“Our job [as creatives] is a surgical job: cutting and assembling and experimenting on the operating table,” Michele told reporters after what he said was an exhausting show.

He said he wanted to show that there was order, a “scientific clarity”, among all the confusion of a job like his.

The brand, the biggest in French luxury group Kering, has been revamped with a bold new style over the past two years under Michele, and recently branched into homeware.

The verve of Michele, director since January 2015, has been the key to giving Gucci a strong new identity, and its bright, elaborate and geeky-yet-chic looks have expanded the brand’s following particularly among younger customers.

The collection, for the next autumn-winter season, was rich and ornate, coherent with the kind of elaborate and layered styles Michele has been sending down catwalks in recent seasons.