There are few designers who have left as visible an imprint on contemporary fashion in recent seasons as Alessandro Michele, the Gucci creative director responsible for bringing a vibrantly hued and variously printed eclecticism to the Italian powerhouse. S/S17 showed a continuation of form: the Gucci woman (and man, because there were plenty of men here) was, as the show notes proclaimed, “steeped in wonder, phantasmagoria and unorthodoxy” – or, in layman’s terms, dressed in an abundance of old Gucci glamour, vintage ruffles and shimmering surrealism presented through Michele's kaleidoscopic lens. The collection came complete with a soundtrack of Florence Welch reading William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience over the speakers: a perfect embodiment of the romantic era-hopping that Michele has proven so nimbly attuned to.
