"Horror", "despair", "perversion", and "violence" are all common elements that designers find inspiration from. It is evident because there had been many designers in the past that used horror and cult films by Dario Argento, Roman Polanski, and Alfred Hitchcock in their collections' themes. Such cult film obsessed designers include the late Alexander McQueen, Nicolas Ghesquiere, Raf Simons, and Jun Takahashi. Today, the one who is at the top of the game of cult film inspired creations in fashion is most definitely Alessandro Michele for GUCCI. Michele's obsession with horror and cult films is next level. In the opening of 2019 S/S that took place in Paris for the first time, audiences were blown away when they were shown "A Charlie Parker" (1970), a film by Italian avant-garde genius Leo de Berardinis and Perla Peragallo, who were active between the 1960's and 80's. The hair-raising and eerie visuals certainly made everyone feel uneasy. But it was this work and Leo and Perla's existence that influenced Michele in to shaping the concept, "possessed by delusion, savage, and broken plot" for this season's GUCCI. The underground mood set by Leo and Perla was soon filled with models adorned in retro and fetishistic clothes, with some elements that might have been cited from Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange" (1971).

This Leo, Perla, Kubrick and cult inspired creations is not just unique to this season, but is a recurring theme for Michele. In 2018 A/W collection, we saw models carrying a seared head. For the 2019 cruise, he chose a Southern France cemetery from Arles as the setting. "Disturbia" was published in pre-fall 2018 after getting inspirations from Argento's "Inferno" (1980) and "Shadow" (1982).

Genius Michele expresses his manic exploration of horror and cult films through a world renowned brand like GUCCI. His fetishistic output is likely to accelerate from here. What films will be used for his next collection's inspiration? It makes our heart full just from thinking about it.

Text_ SOHEI OSHIRO