Improvisation is an act of collaboration. When the free impulses of individual minds interweave, collective expressions are conceived. The Gucci Fall Winter 2023 Men's Collection employs the circumstance of improvisation as a methodology: a constructive tool for creation. As a practice exercised in theatre and music, improvisation is founded in the know-how of its practitioners. When prompted to freestyle, performers access and activate the intuition of their craft.
Embracing the curiosity and candour carried by improvised ideas, the collection is a natural reflection of the individualities represented by the multi-faceted creatives and craftsmen who inhabit the house of Gucci; who draw on diverse knowledge, skill and imagination in the creation of a bigger picture: The aesthetics of improvisation.
The premise is adapted in a live performance by Marc Ribot's Ceramic Dog. Through a customised soundtrack that develops as the show progresses, the noise rock trio emulates the energies of the collection, building on elements from genres like jazz and punk inherent to musical improvisation. The group appears on a spherical stage around which the show takes place: a circular formation symbolic of the collaborative spinning wheel of the creative community at the heart of Gucci. It constructs a framework for a collection focused on the archetypes of the classic gentleman's wardrobe, redefined through artisanal luxury amplification and the subversive lens of improvisation. Activated by the diverse expressions of the characters who carry them, the garments speak to different understandings of the seduction instinctive to the masculinities of Gucci.
The collection features a magnified reinterpretation of the Jackie bag softened in construction and adorned with the Piston Lock originally created by Tom Ford for Gucci, in faded pastel crocodile editions. Select fabrications are echoed in the Dionysus, which materialises stripped of its original decorative construction, but still bears its emblematic double-edged tiger-headed horseshoe buckle and a new leather strap. Garment bags worn as shoulder bags are crafted in coloured coated canvases, while the Crystal GG canvas features in a new rectangular relaxed holdall proposed in the palette of the collection, and in a classic 1970s round-toed ankle boot. It appears alongside a heeled slipper, a Princetown slipper expanded in dimension with the signature green-red-green web, and a Horsebit loafer with a lived-in effect, reflecting the collection's emphasis on personalisation.
