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    • Gucci’s new book is a love letter to London and its contradictions
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    Gucci’s new book is a love letter to London and its contradictions

    Umito Posted on

    Last May, Gucci creative director Sabato de Sarno visited London to show its first Cruise collection for the house, populating the Tanks designed by Herzog & de Meuron at the Tate Modern with a “botanical tapestry” of more than 10,000 plants as a backdrop for a collection that combines an urban uniform with touches of romance and craftsmanship. De Sarno cited as inspiration Gucci’s “unlimited ability to create contrasts, to make them converse and find ways to coexist”, comparing it to the topography of London, where frenetic urban streets meet expanses of open spaces. greens and parks.

    “I owe a lot to this city,” he said at the time. “He welcomed me and listened. The same goes for Guccio Gucci, whose founder drew inspiration from his experience there. The latter refers to the time when the house’s founder was a porter at the Savoy Hotel, where observing the burgeoning traveling classes would ultimately lead him to create an eponymous luggage line upon his return to Florence, Italy in 1921. “It’s another part of me, more romantic, more contradictory. I like to take something we think we know and break away from it,” he said of the collection itself.

    Gucci London: a loving portrait of London and its contradictions

    Gucci London book cover

    (Image credit: Courtesy of Gucci)

    Now, a new volume published by the house – the fourth part of a series called “Gucci Prospettive” presented by De Sarno at the start of his tenure – is a love letter to London and its contradictions, coinciding with the arrival of the cruise. collection in store. London-based duo Charlene Prempeh and Lewis Dalton Gilbert – who make up A Vibe Called Tech, a creative and art consultancy agency – penned the book, whose pages are filled with a collage of photographs, artwork , song lyrics and texts that speak. to the city’s unique cultural mix, spanning decades, postcodes and perspectives. The book carries the slogan: “We will always have London” and is loosely based around the city being one of the “Dreamers”.

    “The agency began as a public engagement work examining the effects of technology on the Black community and has since evolved into both an art consultancy and a platform that seeks to create healthy ecosystems for intersectional creativity in diverse spaces,” says A Vibe’s Prempeh. Called Tech’s debut. “I think the desire and need to work with like-minded people was part of the catalyst for us working together…to establish a different way of working, a reaction but not a criticism of all the roles we had held before,” adds Dalton Gilbert. “We wanted to tell lesser-known stories.”

    Gucci London Book Image of a girl riding by housing block

    Ebony Horse Club, South London, 2020

    (Image credit: Photography © Vivek Vadoliya)

    Having collaborated with Gucci many times before and both growing up in London, Prempeh and Dalton Gilbert were uniquely suited to curate this publication, which covers a broad spectrum of the city and its people. “London is really full of characters,” says Prempeh. “When I talk about multiculturalism, I never just talk about country of origin and ethnicity, I think about the breadth of our collective interests. I love it because we are exposed to so much culture that we really engage with it. The book itself is divided into four sections, “Dream Buildings”, “People Watching”, “Watching People” and “Building Dreams”, which, as their names suggest, find intriguing similarities and contradictions in the catalog of works of art.

    “There are some very nice associations in the layout of the book, like the image of Vivek Vadoliya next to Queen Elizabeth II,” says Dalton Gilbert (Vadoliya captures a member of the Ebony Horse Club, a club based in Brixton which encourages riders from disadvantaged backgrounds). urban communities; Queen Elizabeth II is also on horseback). “It always makes me smile. It’s a reminder of how quickly this city can change from one street to the next, the different communities that coexist, the similarities they can share, and the dynamic interaction that sparks inspiration.

    Book Gucci London Image from the Prince Charles cinema

    The Prince Charles Cinema, Leicester Place, London, 2015

    (Image credit: Photography © Rob Greig)

    “As a born and bred Londoner, I owe my life as it is to London and it’s part of my DNA,” he continues. “No matter how many times I fall in love with it or spend the first two days on a trip abroad looking for property, every time I return, I can’t help but feel a familiarity and affinity with the chaos that coexists and I hope that comes through in this book.

    Umito
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