STYLE Edit: What does the horse all over Gucci’s new campaign ad have to do with a collection about sexual liberation?
There are times in every fashionista’s life where she will come across a campaign or collection and utter those four dreaded words: “I don’t get it.” She may wonder if she’s still in the loop, if she’s still en vogue, when it comes to understanding fashion’s seasonal offerings.
And then she’ll look at this campaign and realise it’s just Gucci being Gucci.
For the brand’s Spring Summer 2020 collection, an ad campaign realised by creative director Alessandro Michele and shot by Yorgos Lanthimos features a horse as its leading protagonist. Yes, you read that right: a horse.
STYLE Edit: Who’s with Harry Styles on Gucci’s Art Wall in Hong Kong?
Equipped rather smugly with an #ofcourseahorse hashtag, the horse joins its Gucci gang on the beach for summer sunbathing, in the kitchen to share a snack, at the car wash, in a traffic jam and in first class on an aeroplane. It seems the horse is everywhere but the Jockey Club.
Other than the large mammal, there is the other equestrian allusion. We note the house code: the horsebit detailing on the new spring/summer dome-shaped bag with the words “Gucci Orgasmique” across the front. What a horse has to do with a collection about sexual liberation is still up for debate.
The horse – when positioned in an everyday, human context – might remind you of the Greek god of gods, Zeus, who used to transform into an animal to engage in sexual pursuits. If you recall Gucci’s Cruise 2020 art book, Oviparity, Michele alluded to the Greek myth of Leda and the Swan, where Zeus took the form of the bird to seduce Leda.
So, then, perhaps the horse is a god or human incarnate. Or a surrealist projection that should make us reflect on our own horse-like qualities, whatever that entails.
STYLE Edit: Gucci to back Nick Cave’s Copenhagen exhibition
Or perhaps it’s none of the above and Alessandro Michele really enjoys taking us for a ride.
In the spirit of Michele’s libertarian, postmodernist Gucci, it seems that the truth about the horse is relative to the eye of the beholder. Much like style.
Want more stories like this? Sign up here. Follow STYLE on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter .
Is the omnipresent horse in Gucci’s Spring Summer 2020 collection ad – realised by Alessandro Michele and shot by Yorgos Lanthimos – a Dali-inspired surrealist projection or all a bit of horseplay?