Debuted earlier this year, the Gucci Aria collection marked the Italian luxury fashion house’s centennial anniversary, celebrated by ‘hacking’ fellow Kering brand Balenciaga. Now, Gucci Aria gets its own campaign, with creative director Alessandro Michele tapping photographer duo Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott (also known as Mert and Marcus) to shoot a series of cinematic and somewhat erotic images.
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Shot in The Savoy where Guccio Gucci – founder of Gucci – initially worked as a lift boy, deriving inspiration for the luxury fashion house from the sophisticated guests who frequented the London hotel, the campaign stars American model Kristen McMenamy and the members of Italian rock band Måneskin. Theatrical and highly stylised, the Gucci Aria campaign is dubbed ‘Ontology of Desire’ and balances boudoir with philosophy and existentialism. Drawing upon the seemingly unlikely literary references of Sigmund Freud and Jean Baudrillard, with models clutching copies of Freud’s Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex, Baudrillard’s Simulacra et Simulation, Bodies that Matter by Judith Butler, and Walter Benjamin’s The Work of Art in the Age of its Technical Reproducibility, as the camera takes on a voyeuristic lens and captures them embroiled in erotic poses.
Though the philosophical references may seem a little out of left field for Gucci, they tie in with the Tom Ford era of the brand, which introduced a sexier, raunchier side to the Italian fashion house; the centennial anniversary collection saw Michele riff off Ford’s designs, adding a harness to Ford’s signature velvet suiting and toy with trashy-chic designs. Playing into themes of fetish including foot worship, light bondage, and power play, there’s more than enough fodder to cater to Freud’s key interests.
As for Baudrillard, his obsession with symbols in contemporary society is more than catered for by most luxury fashion houses’ monogram and logo-laden designs. Gucci is no exception, with the double G in no short supply across the voyeuristic images; perhaps speaking to Baudrillard’s theory of contemporary media blurring the line between products necessary for our survival and those whose purported ‘need’ is created by commercial images.
“Knowledge itself becomes an object of desire,” says Michele of the campaign. “So the books of Freud, Nancy, and Butler describe the universe of desire, and more, they become objects of attraction themselves. As a consequence, words transfigure into an amorous lexicon.”
The Gucci Aria campaign and collection are available to peruse (or study) and shop on the Gucci webstore.
Words by Theo Rosen
