Gucci is embracing the holiday season by unveiling its latest Gift Giving product selection and campaign, which will be extensively supported by digital activities.
Spanning many categories — ranging from T-shirts and footwear to handbags, jewelry, children’s wear and even porcelain items — the product selection is at the core of a new art book released by the house in collaboration with Spanish artist Ignasi Monreal.
Monreal designed a series of digitally created artworks incorporating Gucci products and developing a narrative inspired by the story of the fall of Icarus.
“Icarus fascinates me because of his story, which could be read a bit like a mantra,” said Monreal. “If you fly too close to the sun, you’re going to get burned. If you fly too low, you’re going to drown in the sea. It feels quite bluntly obvious, but I find it quite timeless and reassuring. You have to find the middle point to land on the other side,” he continued, pointing at the “tricky human condition.”
The artist also defined the mythological character as “very romantic and of course symbolic of everything young and pretty. Very East London.”
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Illustrations in the book include belt-bags encircling a classical statue, small leather goods set in a contemporary, Renaissance-inspired still-life composition and kittens wearing sunglasses and popping out of Gucci mugs, among others.
This is not the first time Monreal has collaborated with the fashion house. He first took part in the #guccigram project in 2015, while recently his artworks were printed on T-shirts featured in the brand’s cruise 2018 collection.
In September, Monreal was called on to decorate the Gucci Artwalls in Milan and New York to celebrate the launch of the Gucci Bloom fragrance. He will reprise a similar role to promote the Gift Giving campaign depicting the house’s new eyewear.
In addition to the Artwalls in Milan and New York, the product selection and campaign will be boosted digitally through the implementation of an interactive version of the Gift Giving book and a dedicated takeover of the brand’s website homepage.
In addition, special interactive contents will be available on the Gucci app, such as filters that can be used to customize photographs, digital greeting cards that can be personalized and shared, and software animating Gucci shop windows, allowing customers to scan a sticker that is applied on the glass display.
Installations in Gucci’s store windows will showcase products in a striking set made of yellow temple structures and candy-pink LED neon frames.
In keeping with the Renaissance inspiration, the giant cabinets will bear extracts from Lorenzo de’ Medici’s renowned “Trionfo di Bacco e Arianna” (“A Song for Bacchus”) poem. Yellow mannequins will be installed to rotate as figures on a giant mechanical clock, while a complementary yellow room-set comprising hand-brushed boiserie walls and parquet floor will complete the installations.
