Gucci’s first collaboration with Instagram will blow your mind

Date October 30, 2015

It’s no secret that Alessandro Michele is the current darling of the fashion world. Less than a year into his tenure as the new Creative Director at Gucci and he’s already managed to send shockwaves throughout the entire industry with his offbeat aesthetic and unconventional brand of glamour. His unique ability to fuse the house’s illustrious heritage with cutting edge (albeit eccentric) modernity is “the fashion equivalent of painting over an old master,” which has effectively rendered designs that are contemporary classics in their own right.

The latest tool he’s employed in his revolution is Instagram, with the launch of a social media campaign aptly titled #GucciGram. Tapping into society’s obsession with digital media and visual culture, Michele tasked 31 international artists, of varying levels of fame, to repurpose two of the brand’s new motifs (Gucci Blooms and Gucci Caleido). Giving them carte blanche to exercise their creative muscles, the results have proved as diverse as the talents themselves, incorporating a slew of different mediums such as illustration, photography, collage, and video.

Online sensations Copy Lab and The Most Famous Artist turned their hand to iconic paintings American Gothic and The Kiss, embellishing them with Gucci fabrics and accessories. At the other end of the spectrum, Spanish artist Amalia Ulman captured a faceless model snapping a grainy selfie in an airplane restroom, Gucci wristlet hung strategically on the back of the door, resulting in a voyeuristic end shot.

The genius of this campaign is that it’s also bound to inspire legions of copycat creatives to develop their own rendition of the blooms and caleido patterns (dutifully tagged with #GucciGram, of course). They say a picture’s worth a thousand words—it might be worth a couple thousand followers, too.

Flip through our gallery for a peek inside the project.