Gucci is channelling the awkwardness of the office party – retro style.
Source:
https://scmp.com/magazines/style/luxury/article/3110914/style-edit-guccis-gift-giving-festive-campaign-playfully Luxury
STYLE Edit: Gucci’s Gift Giving festive campaign playfully channels 90s kitsch and fun office Christmas parties
Creative director Alessandro Michele’s familiar obsession with retro computers and 1990s kitsch receives its latest update in the Gucci Holiday Office Party – think humdrum carpets, grey metal filing cabinets, clunky desktop PCs and Xerox photocopiers, but stylish
Gucci is going all awkward office party for its festive Gift Giving campaign. Photos: Gucci
It feels like only yesterday that Gucci unveiled a Christmas campaign set on sunny shores with a tinsel-clad cruise ship. But that was in 2019 – and what a difference a year makes. With lockdowns and social distancing epitomising most of the year, the outdoors is out and the indoors is in. And, in keeping with the zeitgeist, Gucci’s 2020 Gift Giving campaign has taken things indoors – namely, into an office on the cusp of a Christmas disco.
If you were privy to creative director Alessandro Michele’s Epilogue show in July, you might already be familiar with his obsession with retro computer aesthetics and 1990s kitsch. With the help of director Akinola Davies Jr and photographer Mark Peckmezian, Michele returns to the throwback theme once again in this season’s Gift Giving campaign.
The Gucci Holiday Office Party is set in a dated office with its humdrum carpeted floor, grey metal filing cabinets, chunky-clunky desktop PCs and Xerox photocopier. The employees are dressed in the house’s signature pieces, and counting down the hours until they can start a Christmas conga line.
The pandemic has got us all living indoors, and looking backwards.
The Gucci Gift line appears to be marked by a lot of red and green, and a lot of sequins. Inspired by the idea of being wrapped up on a wintry day in a cosy blanket, a woolly red and green houndstooth pattern appears across the collection, in small leather accessories, handbags, totes, shoes and more.
The men’s Gucci Tennis 1977 sneaker gets the seasonal green and red woolly jacquard refresh, with even more house red and green piled on with the signature Web stripe.
Feeling festive – and funky.
As for the sequins, a similar all-or-nothing approach occurs. The GG Marmont line dazzles in 3mm micro sequins in multiple colourways, including pastel satin pink, pastel satin green, a vintage gold, silver and black. There’s even a striped multicolour version in case one shade of sequins just isn’t enough.
The dazzle is also deployed on women’s slides, mid-heels, the women’s Gucci Tennis 1977 trainers, gloves, hairbands and a beret. It’s celebratory, it’s bold maximalism, it’s Gucci ready for the new year.
To wrap up your new Gucci gifts, Gucci unveiled new packaging on November 11 too that features an ornate green pattern embossed on paper bags and cardboard boxes. The new packaging is in keeping with Gucci’s sustainability commitments, with all uncoated (and thus, recyclable) paper and cardboard sourced from sustainably managed forests.
The GG monogram takes on new meaning when sprinkled with festive, charitable cheer.
And, where other brands might consider their app offerings as an afterthought, Gucci has really stepped up the plate in the virtual world, bridging the gap between their GG monogram and the “Good Game” gamer vernacular.
Gucci remains ever-playful – especially in time for Christmas.
In the Gucci Arcade, found on their mobile app, users can play a number of cleverly themed games – including digital pinball with the new Gucci lipsticks as flipper bats in Gucci Lips. A new arcade game will be released in celebration of the Gift Giving 2020 line, which takes its lead from the wildly popular Conga Master game by Undercoders.
The app also features a 3D rendering of the Gift Giving campaign environment, where you can tap into all the nooks and crannies of the 1990s-themed office to see the seasonal products and campaign photography.