Archetypes, an immersive multi-sensory exhibition that explores the aesthetics of the Maison through its most iconic images of the last six years.

The Gucci Garden in Florence is a truly unmissable stop for fashionistas and art lovers. In a succession of surprising situations and immersive art installations, Archetypes tells the best of the brand’s advertising campaigns signed by iconic photographers and directors like Martin Parr and Yorgos Lanthimos.

The exhibition space, created on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Maison with the contribution of the fashion curator Maria Luisa Frisa, was set up inside the Palazzo della Mercanzia in Piazza della Signoria which, on the ground floor, houses the sparkling boutique of the Maison, the bookshop and the Gucci Osteria directed by Massimo Bottura, while, in the semi-underground spaces, we find the Gucci private archive.

Quality is remembered long after Price is forgotten.

(Aldo Gucci)

The history of the Maison begins in 1921 when Guccio Gucci, son of a family of Tuscan artisans, opens his first shop in Florence, quickly becoming the reference point for an international élite clientele. A history spanning more than one hundred years that has seen the Maison dress princesses and movie stars and establish itself as one of the major Italian players in world fashion, thanks also to unforgettable directions such as that of Tom Ford in the 1990s.

The arrival of Alessandro Michele in 2015, with his visionary and disruptive talent, marks a new turning point for the brand. Extraordinary collections follow one another on the catwalk and Gucci embodies a new spirit that combines luxury and non-conformism, fashion and rebellion, but above all a lot of free and inspired creativity. The year 2022 marks the beginning of a new chapter with the investiture of Sabato De Sarno, former fashion director of Valentino with important past experiences in Prada and Dolce&Gabbana, as the new Creative Director, paving the way for new stories to tell.

The Gucci Garden is a kaleidoscopic journey between catwalks and cities, surreal characters and everyday life situations where luxury is a state-of-mind without chronological order that stimulates us to “go with the flow” of images and sensations. From the Hallucinations, which narrate the epic SS 2018 campaign where male and female models transform themselves into mythological figures, to the Paris of the Sixties portrayed in the FW 2019 campaign, up to a dazzling, magical and colorful Tokyo with its pachinko halls and the noises thunderous, chosen for FW 2016.

Changing room, we find ourselves projected into the “party of the century”, a glittering party set in a Roman villa that celebrates the 80s glitz and excesses told through the eyes of Harmony Korine, cult director and video-maker of the indie world. It is the campaign created for the Gucci Cruise 2020, entitled Come as you are RSVP which accompanies Rebellious Romantics; the portrait of a group of colorful young people chasing each other against the backdrop of a brutalist Berlin made up of yellow trains, cruel and gaudy architecture bathrooms in nightclubs, the mood of the SS 2016 campaign.

We then fly to Detroit, on the notes of the musical subcultures born in the late Sixties, for the Gucci Pre-Fall 2017, to find ourselves immediately after straddling the sunny streets of Los Angeles guided by the gaze of Yorgos Lanthimos, former director of masterpieces like The Lobster and La Favorita, which have been entrusted with the iconic SS 2020 campaign. Finally, we land in the flower garden of In Bloom, a tribute to the fragrance created by Alessandro Michele to celebrate the feminine, a metaphor for a free space of the mind where three stars such as the actress Dakota Johnson, the artist and photographer Petra Collins and the model Hari Nef move.

Splendid icons of diversity, as well as the New York model Dani Miller, the protagonist of Gucci Beauty Network, a fake TV channel which, through the unmistakable eye of Martin Parr, overturns aesthetic canons and rules of beauty for the umpteenth time. “A journey that is worth a journey”, the Gucci Garden, with its irreverent poetics, speaks to us of freedom and inclusion, life and love, art and beauty in all its forms and expressions.
The proceeds from the exhibition are donated to the restoration of selected works of art in Florence.

The Secret

In 1966 Rodolfo Gucci asked the Italian illustrator Vittorio Accornero, who was already collaborating with the Maison, to design a floral-themed scarf dedicated to Grace Kelly. Thus was born the iconic Flora print, still in production, made up of 43 types of flowers, plants and insects represented using 37 colours. Accornero, artist, set designer and writer, collaborated with Gucci until 1980, creating another 80 unforgettable designs for the brand’s scarves.

Useful Info

Gucci Garden
Piazza della Signoria 10
50122 Firenze
Tel. +39 055 75927010

Entrance: 8 euro