Gucci abandons 'worn-out' rituals of fashion calendars, reduces shows

Amid the COVID-19 outbreak, Gucci’s creative director Alessandro Michele has announced that the brand is permanently leaving the traditional fashion calendar behind as the industry rethinks how it would be operating further in context to COVID-19 outbreak. He shared the changing norms of Gucci by posting a series of diary entries on his Instagram handle. In a series of diary entries titled ‘Notes from the Silence’ shared by Alessandro Michelle, he announced that Gucci would be abandoning the ‘worn-out’ ritual of seasonality and shows.

He also said this is done in order to regain a new modulation for the brand amid the COVID-19 crisis. Alessandro Michelle also informed that Gucci would now be presenting only two fashion shows instead of five and would not follow the traditional fashion calendar that is pre-fall, spring-summer, cruise and fall-winter. He also called it ‘stale’ and ‘underfed’.

Talking about impact on the fashion industry, he said, “So much outrageous greed made us lose the harmony and the care, the connection and the belonging. We ravaged the sanctity of life, neglectful of being a species. At the end of the day, we were out of breath." Through this series of posts, Alessandro talked about his decision to build a new path that is, "away from the deadlines that the industry consolidated and, above all, away from excessive performativity that today really has no raison d'etre."

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Michelle also went on to mention about sustainability in fashion as he said that he wants to go back to the things and interests that made him enter the fashion industry. Therefore, the change he wants involves purifying essential by getting rid of the unnecessary. Talking about authentication and his motive to be a part of this industry, he emphasised on the fact of how in the following years the imposed deadlines have humiliated creativity in the fashion industry. He mentioned that he believes that the brand can build a better tomorrow that has a renewed capacity of the denomination.

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Gucci wouldn’t be the first brand to announce that the brand wouldn’t adhere to the traditional fashion calendar anymore. Another high profile luxury brand Saint Laurent announced the same in April followed by the famous brand Armani. In a letter to Women’s Wear Daily, the brand's owner said that it is ‘immoral’ for a luxury brand to adopt the pace of fast fashion-the drive to deliver more in pursuit of profits 'yet forgetting that luxury takes time, to be achieved and to be appreciated.'

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