In fashion, travel is just part of the job, especially for the creative director of one of the hottest brands of the moment. “I hate to travel,” Alessandro Michele revealed backstage after the Gucci Spring 2017 Menswear show. “You don’t have to take a plane. You can just get on the subway.” While the designer has been jet setting all over Europe as of late—he just returned to Milan after showing his resort line in London—he explained he doesn’t need to travel physically to be inspired by the world. “You can travel in different ways,” he noted. “With a book, you can travel. If I change the tapestry of my chair, I sit and I travel.”
Drawing from the global travels of other adventurers, most notably Marco Polo and his expeditions to Asia, he presented a very eccentric collection that felt as if it was overwhelming the senses, perhaps very much like what Polo may have felt on his treks to China. The runway was a lime green carpet with a giant image of a serpent slithering along the length of it, while models trod overhead wearing jackets embroidered with dragons and mythical sea creatures, silk robes and changshan done in jacquard and modern bomber jackets with Asian-themed prints.
Of course Michele couldn’t simply travel to one continent. Breaking up his inspiration with sailor-inspired suits (perhaps as a way of symbolizing the physical act of moving from place to place), he also took the collection to the Mediterranean with Greek lettering on the back of jackets, noting the name of Greco-Egyptian deity Serapis, Σέραπις. He also brought us to a more modern American with a series of Donald Duck prints and accessories that stood out, but still felt oddly connected to the line as a whole. But perhaps that what makes Michele so good: he can take a jumbled mess of oriental, Grecian and American prints and somehow transform them into another successful collection.
