Gucci moved its presentation to the first evening of the Paris shows to close a French trilogy that started with a pre-fall collection shot in Paris locations significant to 1968 and took out the Alyscamps cemetery in Arles for its cruise show. Alessandro Michele’s choice of venue, the fabled Le Palace nightclub and theatre in Montmartre – so gritty and dusty Gucci had to change the carpet – was a perfectly suitable choice for his underground elves. But it was the noticeable progress of Michele’s plentiful shtick and his bold styling moves that made this collection more compelling than his usual theatre.
It was in homage to Leo and Perla, who didn’t just have the best cat names ever but set Italian experimental theatre on fire with their provocative takes on Shakespeare in the 1960s. Michele’s typically indecipherable show notes came with much ado about Leo de Berardinis and Perla Peragallo, but their impact on the collection seemed to be rooted in the confrontational, the alluring and the highly sexualised. Those tendencies were an unexpected and great move on Michele’s part; more of that, please, sir. “I realised something when I was going back to my room,” he said after the curtain had closed on his theatre and bows were taken.
