Gucci Garden Galleria

A tribute by Alessandro Michele, creative director of the Maison Gucci since January 2015, to the city of Florence. An exaltation of the historical origins of the Palazzo della Mercanzia, built in 1359, and already home of the Gucci Museum, since 2011, that relives today a new life thanks to installations and works of art that make the visit to the Gucci Garden Gallery, an absolutely dynamic and interactive experience, as well as unique.

A fantastic world that includes a boutique on the ground floor, Gucci Garden, where to find a collection exclusively sold clothing and accessories, a bookshop and stationery items. A restaurant, the Gucci Osteria, entrusted to the expert hands of the multi-starred Massimo Bottura, and a gallery that takes life on the first and second floor of the building, realized thanks to various artistic collaborations with prominent personalities close to the heart of the Maison. Jayde Fish, Trevor Andrew and Coco Capitán, to name a few, decorated the walls leaving their trademark and helped make the experience even more lively and unforgettable.

This is an organization that does not follow chronological schemes, in a continuous contrast between past and present that is specifically designed to explore the eclecticism that has always characterized the brand, since its foundation in 1921. The historical archive comes back to life: from advertising campaigns, a selection of the most iconic vintage products, artisanal production processes, a bulwark of qualitative superiority that has always characterized the company.

So, turning to the different thematic rooms where the Gucci Garden Gallery exhibition is organized, you will discover unique pieces of clothing, accessories, video installations, documents, artefacts and graphic exhibits that will let you enter the new vision of the Maison, never how much today is embedded in an indefinable temporal space, where the future and the past are one, seeming to be a distant tomorrow and in others a closer yesterday.

Starting from the first Guccification hall, where the history of the “double G” is flanked by decidedly modern art forms such as the GucciGhost by Trouble Andrew and the new vocabulary attributed to the maison by the social networks – Guccy, Guccify and Guccification – through the second Paraphernalia, dedicated to the stylistic codes of the brand, up to Cosmorama, focus on customers and on the international jet-set. Then, we move to the second floor, where two spaces De Rerum Natura and Ephemera focus on the element from which everything takes its name, with focus on animals and gardens, and on a historical carousel dedicated to the life of the Maison. To conclude, this theater of the imaginary, at times almost absurd, Cinema da Camera, is a real auditorium where experimental films are projected.

Maria Luisa Frisa, critic and fashion curator, artistic director of the degree course in Fashion Design and Multimedia Arts at the Iuav University of Venice, has joined Alessandro Michele in this adventure, dealing with the thematic organization of the exhibition. «For Gucci the past is an integral part of the present, which fits perfectly with the idea of ​​Alessandro’s brand, even with his attitude towards Florence, the home of Gucci, whom he perceives as a city where history is still alive and dynamic».

If you want to get lost for a while in this fantastic Florence, let yourself be transported to the wonderful world of Gucci Garden Galleria and when the time comes, try to find the exit and get back to reality. We are sure that the magnetism of this place will keep you busy for a while.