Gucci's latest ad campaign: Rollerblading in the ancient world

By

Godfrey Deeny

Published
Apr 15, 2019

Alessandro Michele has taken Gucci another trip to the ancient world, with his new pre-fall 2019 ad campaign that juxtaposes rollerbladers inside the Temple of Hera. Though, in classically iconoclastic manner, Michele has also added a technological twist to the brand's app.

 
Gucci’s creative director staged Gucci’s pre-fall campaign in Selinunte, an ancient Greek city, on the south-western coast of Sicily, founded in 650 B.C., and so old that the father of “scientific history” Thucydides wrote at length about it. But it being Michele, cultures mingle and collide exotically throughout the imagery, shot by Glen Luchford.
 
Body builders; posh punk rockers and roller girls cavort around the sanctuary of Malophorus; Sid Vicious lookalikes dance with flares before giant fluted columns and two gender-bending Greek noblemen make out before a massive rocky terrace. In fashion terms, Michele favours track pants and jackets in floral and equestrian prints worn by hirsute youths shooting hoops idyllically before the Temple of Hera, the goddess of family and childbirth; or English cricket blazers, logo dressing gowns and slippers for sunset picnics among the ruins. Plus, a new photo booth on the Gucci app, will allow fans to place themselves inside the antique city’s temples.

Michele has a deep love affair with the ancient world, staging Gucci’s 2018 cruise collection in Alyscamps, a Roman necropolis in Arles; while other shows have regularly featured legendary goddesses and emperors.
 
Originally a substantial city with a population of 30,000, Selinunte was laid to waste by the Carthaginians during the First Punic War with Rome around 250 B.C. However, its striking ruins with an acropolis perched on  cliff face overlooking the Mediterranean, are legendary among fans of Antiquity. And it boasts enough waves for some dashing surfers, images of whom open the Luchford video. California dreaming in Sicily.