Gucci's Fall 2020 Ad Campaign Is Made up of Candid Self-Portraits

An intimate look at how Alessandro Michele’s favorite models go about their daily routines in quarantine.

Often times, it’s hard to imagine putting on what goes down the runway in Milan or Paris to go about our daily routines. We’re throwing on leggings and a hoodie to do laundry and run an errand — we’re not whipping out a natty plaid pantsuit or a Renaissance-inspired panier skirt. But that’s just it: Fashion is fantasy and so much of what comes out of a designer’s mind is about stepping out of the ordinary and taking on a new identity, even if only for a night.

Gucci‘s Alessandro Michele is a master of creating costumes. His Fall 2020 line for the Italian label was filled with different characters, from a little school girl to grown-up nuns and nurses. When faced with a pandemic, the creative director did as many magazines and brands have done for editorial and campaign visuals during Covid-19 and asked the models to play art director. Michele’s instructions were simple: He told the models to inhabit the looks in their daily lives from the comfort of their own, intimate spaces and record themselves doing so.

“I decided to let the clothes travel towards the houses of the cast of models — the characters that have embodied my stories for years; individuals I chose precisely, over time, for their uniqueness that usually brings my campaigns to life,” Michele said in a release. “I asked them to represent the idea they have of themselves, to go public with it, shaping the poetry that accompanies them. I encouraged them to play, improvising with their life.”

Some told their sartorial stories through disposable cameras, while others used the advanced settings of camera phones, adding to the variety of results. The hyper-real images depict the eclectic cast doing all sorts of beloved quarantine activities like sunbathing, knitting, hanging on the roof, skateboarding indoors and laying on the ground pondering the meaning of life. A few individuals even captured themselves brushing their teeth and doing house chores in their Gucci wares.

This visual experiment of self-portraits may not have been the ad campaign the brand originally envisioned to showcase its autumn range, but the mundane scenarios show that if we invite the fantasy of fashion into our homes and let it dress-up our everyday lives, then it’ll feel like we’re living in a dream.

See the full Gucci Fall ad campaign below and see more Fall 2020 ad campaigns here.