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FINNIES THE JEWELLER
TIMELESS
Having the same creative mind that was behind the ready-to-wear collections also bringing his inspiration to bear on the watches and jewellery had created an exciting synergy between the two. The new design language was being shared and the results were like nothing else.
There were automatics, complete with more sober leather straps and gold-plated cases, but instead of indices there were stars, hearts and, Gucci’s new signature animal, bees. Similarly, in jewellery, the superlative craftsmanship and stone- setting were still in evidence but deployed making lions’ heads and skulls rather than petals and bows.
It was a big, bold, beautiful collection and one that was to get its own ambassador in the form of Florence Welch. Welch was the perfect role model for this new incarnation. With her eclectic, opulent way of dressing and almost shamanic stage presence, she already embodied the new world Michele had created and looked perfectly at home adorned in his creations.
Thankfully this wasn’t just a one-off. The correlation between what was on the Gucci catwalk and what was being developed in accessories became even more entwined, so much so that Gucci became one of the few Houses to show the watches, as well as the jewellery, as part of its catwalk show.
RIGHT: from the Art of the GRG Fashion show collection, this plexiglass number has a visible quartz movement and bracelet in Gucci colours
FAR LEFT: among this year’s Gucci watch releases was a model that features a snake crawling across the leather strap onto
the dial.
LEFT: a Nato strap emblazoned with the brand’s new slogan, ‘L’Aveugle Par Amour’ (blind for love)
RIGHT: this year Gucci added a moonphase
to its collection. It
has a date window
at 6 o’clock, a quartz movement and is on a leather strap
This year saw Nato-style straps embroidered with the slogan ‘L’Aveugle Par Amour’ (or blind for love), which featured heavily in the S/S 17 ready-to-wear lines, resin lions’ heads that slid aside to reveal watch dials and an amazing dual time that had a snake for the second time-zone hand. However, the standout piece from this year’s collection, and one that showed Gucci has just as much of a handle on the trends in the watch industry as it does those in sartorial sphere, is the G-Timeless Moonphase.
Moonphases are everywhere this year – Cartier put an enlarged one in its men’s hero watch the Drive de Cartier, while the must-own piece from the new IWC Da Vinci collection contained this lunar complication. In Gucci’s version, the lunar disc is in rainbow shades, while dotted around the black dial are multi- coloured planets and shooting stars: it’s as if Willy Wonka went mad in a watch factory. Michele has, in the past, spoken about a disregard for the rules, looking for romance instead and that attitude is writ large in this watch. It is a moonphase that could only have been created by someone outside of the watch industry and all the better for it.
There is a sense that Michele is applying the same magpie irreverence to the watches and jewellery as he does to Gucci’s clothing. Everything is inspiration and there to be absorbed and refracted through his particular prism. In a recent interview with Vogue Italia, Michele said that he felt this easy plundering of history was a result of a certain quirk of his father’s. “I grew up with a father who didn’t wear a watch,” he said. “And this has permanently marked my relationship with time.”
Despite this, if the past two years are anything to go by, he certainly has an intimate knowledge of how to make a great timepiece. Looks like Gucci has managed, almost single-handedly, to change the meaning of the phrase ‘fashion watch’. Certainly no one’s being dismissive now.
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