The Gucci Museum was amazing. The three floors were decadent
displays of Gucci history. His most well-known, classic styles were showcased
and divided into eight sections. There was also a section on contemporary art.
Personally, I didn’t prefer it, especially in comparison to the handbags, shoes,
and other Gucci merchandise. In addition, there’s also a Gucci restaurant and a
café, an icon store, and a gift shop on the ground floor. Each of the rooms had
informational postcards and plaques describing the products and giving a brief
history on the items in the room.
My favorite room was the room with Gucci’s evening gowns
from the 2010 Cannes Film Festival. His dresses debuted on amazing movie stars
like Naomi Watts, Hilary Swank, Camille Belle, Kate Beckinsdale,
and Lea Seydeux. When I got home, I googled all the dresses. On the mannequins, they don't even compare to how the stars wore them on the red carpet!
The travel exhibit takes up the entire first floor of the
museum. It chronicles Gucci’s rise to fame, the history behind his use of
canvas and pigskin in the 1920s to present, and the creation of the Gucci brand
and logo. This room is especially important to the Gucci brand due to Gucci’s
history with luggage. When he was working in London as a bellboy, he realized
there as a need for well made, attractive pieces of luggage. The room contains
multiple pieces of luggage dating back almost a century, all which sport the
distinct red and green stripe. There are also well-preserved makeup cases,
duffle bags, trunk sets, and other accessories for the world traveler. This
room introduces the Gucci print on canvas as well as the “horsebit” print. One
of the room’s centerpieces is an old Cadillac with Gucci print canvas for a
hood, and a customized Gucci interior.
In the Handbag room, the Bamboo bag was the central focal
point of the room. It’s a very well known icon of the Gucci line. The first
one was modeled after a saddle in 1947. The process of creating a Bamboo bag is
arduous, as the video in the room showed, but the result is a gorgeous luxury
accessory that is coveted by many. This room held other styles of bags that
rose in popularity in the middle of the 1900s. Most were leather goods, as
Florence and Italy is known for their craftsmanship with leather, but there
were other bags made from raffia– due to the lack of supplies around the War
World eras, and metal – a little later on in the 1970s.
There was also the Flora room. In the early 1960s,
Gucci wanted to present Princess Grace of Monaco with a one of a kind scarf.
This led to the well-known artist and Gucci’s coworker, Vittorio Accornero, to
create the Flora print. This unique scarf had 36 different colors and 9
bouquets, representing each of the four seasons. It was the beginning of the
Flora print craze. The print soon showed up on tea sets, dresses, coats, and
even more scarves. However, there were no scarves that rivaled the detail and
beauty of the original Flora. Most of the scarves had 17 or so colors with only
four bouquets. This print still shows up on modern day fashion pieces, like in
his 2007 collection, which was also featured in the room.
Personally, I thought the Logomania
room and the lifestyle room were the most ridiculous rooms of the whole exhibit.
The Logomania room was literally covered in the Gucci logo from wall to wall,
all over the floor, and over all the products and accessories in the room. The most
visible print was the horsebit print, specifically the horsebit bamboo print,
which was on a gorgeous silk chiffon dress from Gucci’s 2006 collection. The
lifestyle room was filled with Gucci brand board games, cards, electric
guitars, walking canes, umbrellas, picnic sets, thermoses, silver items (cups,
other household items), and lamps. If they didn’t have the Gucci logo on them,
there was the horsebit print, the diamante print, or the classic red-green-red
stripe.
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