With its all-star cast, “Godfather”-like, soap opera plot and sumptuous costumes, “House of Gucci” has been a pop culture hit.
Though many critics panned the film, Lady Gaga garnered a Golden Globe nomination for her somewhat cheesy portrayal of Patrizia Reggiani, who spent 18 years in prison for hiring a hitman to murder her ex-husband and Gucci house scion Maurizio Gucci (played by Adam Driver in the film).
When current Gucci creative director Alessandro Michele presented his “Love Parade” collection on Hollywood Boulevard in November, professing his love of Hollywood, he had not seen the film and was not sure that he would.
But during an interview before the fall 2022 show at Milan Fashion Week where Rihanna sat front row and an Adidas collaboration debuted, Michele shared that he has now seen the film (which incidentally, is newly available to stream), and he has a few opinions.
“I came in the company when I was 30, and now I’m almost 50,” he said. “I want to say I met a lot of people who worked with the family, and they were so sophisticated, in contact with beautiful people, they were artists and collectors.” (Indeed, the Gucci family released a scathing statement after the film’s release, stating that the dramatized film insulted the Gucci legacy.)
“How beautiful Paolo [Gucci] was, how creative and how well he spoke…that’s the real thing,” Michele continued, disputing his friend and Gucci collaborator Jared Leto’s buffoonish take on Paolo, who was a designer in his own right and had a label under his own name.
“They spoke good English, all the men looked so handsome and sophisticated, one was a big movie star in Italy,” he said, referring to patriarch Rodolfo Gucci, who was a renowned film actor, but portrayed by Jeremy Irons in the film in a somewhat cartoonish way. “It’s like they are telling something that is pretty strange,” Michele continued about the Ridley Scott directed film.
Of course, Michele, who wanted to be a costume designer before becoming a fashion designer, knows Hollywood — from making friends and collaborators of a constellation of stars, including Gus Van Sant, with whom he codirected the seven-part “Ouverture” Guccifest mini series.
“A movie is always something that has a point of view, but I did enjoy that it’s clear that Gucci is powerful, it’s something that belongs not to fashion but to the world’s imagination. They can create something completely new, with the story of the family, with all the most famous actors, one who is a friend of mine, that’s the proof Gucci is pop.”
Source: WWD