#ancient pic and vid from 2019

[shailion]

Little man shows off

Little man scurries quickly

[dreamings-free]

To celebrate Gucci’s new genderfree scent, artists and rock stars come together for a wild, bohemian ride.

Words: Charlotte Gush 1st August 2019

The cam­paign shoot for Gucci’s new ​“uni­ver­sal” fra­grance, Guc­ci Mémoire d’une Odeur (Mem­o­ry of a Fra­grance) just dropped. And let us tell you, it’s as pret­ty as a summer’s day in Venice (and it smells a whole lot better).

For this gen­der­flu­id fra­grance Gucci’s cre­ative direc­tor, Alessan­dro Michele worked with mas­ter per­fumer Alber­to Moril­las, the ​“nose” behind the first and most icon­ic uni­sex fra­grance, CK One. ​“Back in the ​’90s… the gen­der ques­tion was dif­fer­ent from today,” Alber­to says. ​“We were search­ing for sim­plic­i­ty and com­fort – the androg­y­nous look was super trendy and this move­ment was expressed through uni­sex fra­grances. Today, [the ques­tion] is all about inclu­siv­i­ty, accep­tance of plu­ral­i­ties, dif­fer­ent sex­u­al­i­ties and styles that can­not be defined,” he says, ​“And the Guc­ci house under Alessan­dro Michele’s cre­ative direc­tion com­plete­ly embraces these phenomena.”

The fra­grance and cam­paign are close­ly tied to the themes of the Cruise 2020 col­lec­tion, which was shown among ancient Roman stat­ues in May. It’s all about cher­ished mem­o­ries, the flu­id­i­ty of time, con­nec­tions through gen­er­a­tions, and the togeth­er­ness of all beings.

In the run up to today’s launch @guccibeauty Insta­gram ran a series of child­hood snaps of their cam­paign faces, includ­ing cute-as-a-but­ton actor and pop star Har­ry Styles.

The oth­er faces includ­ed design­er Har­ris Reed, musi­cian Zumi Rosow, artist Ari­ana Papademetropolous, and for­mer mod­el and trip-hop pio­neer Leslie Win­er (all also very cute ​‘n’ tal­ent­ed). At the press launch in May, they each enthused about the week-long shoot with Glen Luchford in the coun­try­side north of Rome.

“Every­body who worked on the [cam­paign], all the cast, we imme­di­ate­ly felt like we knew each oth­er, for­ev­er, and that we were like a fam­i­ly from the moment that we met,” says musi­cian Zumi Rosow, of Crush and The Black Lips. ​“It was very pow­er­ful. We felt con­nect­ed; and it total­ly made sense that he cast all of us.” Leslie Win­er, who now lives in rur­al France and rarely col­lab­o­rates with fash­ion brands, agrees. ​“I gained even more respect for Alessan­dro, just because who would get that group of peo­ple togeth­er, you know? Seri­ous­ly, herd­ing cats!” she says. “[Alessan­dro] is a fuck­ing genius. It’s art, it’s per­for­mance art, and it’s the­atre. And also, just the idea that he would notice the great beau­ty in Zumi; I thought the [cast were] going to be those reg­u­lar [mod­els] when I came, but no, Alessan­dro likes indi­vid­ual people.”

“The guid­ing ele­ment of the entire cam­paign is the idea of free­dom,” Alessan­dro says of the Guc­ci Mémoire video and cam­paign imagery pre­mier­ing today. ​“I pic­tured a world that was a fres­co of a ​‘mytho­log­i­cal’ life in which the fam­i­ly is a pri­vate com­mu­ni­ty with its own social frame­work where total free­dom of expres­sion pre­vails and where the roles of peo­ple and things aren’t clear.”

In Glen Luchford’s film, the ​“fam­i­ly” are seen pic­nick­ing in the sun­shine among the ruins of Canale Mon­ter­a­no, cavort­ing around their fam­i­ly home (a medieval cas­tle, of course), and danc­ing wild­ly around a bon­fire under the night sky. Zumi rem­i­nisces about dri­ving a drop-top VW bee­tle through the coun­try­side. ​“We drove right past a cafe and there were all these beau­ti­ful old men wear­ing suits, sip­ping espres­so, out front. And they all were blow­ing us kiss­es and wav­ing to us, like, ​‘Ciao! Ciao!’ and I mean, we already were feel­ing like com­plete bliss, but it was so cin­e­mat­ic and like, a pure­ly joy­ful, beau­ti­ful moment.”

Pre­sent­ing Guc­ci Mémoire to press in an old Roman pub­lic library, Alber­to explained the scent’s unique use of chamomile flow­ers – some­thing that’s very rare in per­fumery – on Alessandro’s request, ​“I had to think quite care­ful­ly about why he chose chamomile. When I start­ed to work with the scent itself, then I under­stood: no one had done it before. Chamomile is known all over the world. Every­one has smelt it at some point, but as a dream, a mem­o­ry of child­hood, some­thing time­less, and nev­er in a fra­grance.” A green, aro­mat­ic scent, the Roman chamomile is paired with Indi­an Coral Jas­mine, musk, san­dal­wood and cedar­wood to cre­ate what Alber­to describes as an ​“ele­men­tal”, ​“min­er­al” scent. The bot­tle, a green glass col­umn updat­ed from Gucci’s archives, rein­forces the his­toric themes and uni­ver­sal spir­it of the fragrance.