Gucci unveils optical window designs for Alessandro Michele’s 2016 Cruise Collections

On Friday Gucci upped the ante of Alessandro Michele’s SS16’s Cruise Collection with a thought provoking window design to entice customers worldwide into stores this season.

Herbarium print covers not only the walls of the scene, but the floor, chairs and tailor’s dummies. The set depicts a dream-scape which is surreal and disruptive to normal sense – there are chairs to mess with your depth perception, lining the walls and ceiling.

Accessories will be placed on the chairs, and ready-to-wear garments showcased on the tailor’s dummies. The scenes are tailored for both menswear and womenswear, the printed wallpaper-come-carpet-come-upholstery is coloured emerald green for men and cerise for women. For each gender comes a representative symbol (a serpent motif for women and a tiger for men), subtle but prominent in its placement at the top right hand of each scene, hand-embroidered onto a horizontal chair seat.

Aside from the floating chairs, the herbarium print is the most striking aspect of the display. The herbarium design is deduced from the original term in which flowers were preserved through drying (90s kids, remember doing this at Brownies?) This print featured in Michele’s 2016 Cruise runway show for men and will be a running theme in Gucci’s new window displays.

WORDS: Abigail Southan