The Gucci girl (or shall we call her Guccy?) is a horror-movie buff. One of her favorite directors is the Italian Dario Argento, whose best work in the ’70s and ’80s celebrated Rome’s nocturnal dark side. Movies like The Bird With the Crystal Plumage, Inferno, and Deep Red have become classics of the genre. Alessandro Michele himself is a huge fan. With his help, for Pre-Fall the lovely Guccy roamed the Eternal City, touring a few of the bizarre locations where Argento shot his most sinister, spooky scenes, her adventurous looks a match for the quite extravagant backdrops.
She started her expedition at the Casina delle Civette (which roughly translates into the Owls’ Little House), a fairy tale–like museum built in 1840 bizarrely inspired by a rustic alpine refuge. Under a wooden portal emblazoned with the motto Sapienza e solitudine (“knowledge and solitude”) she wore a glamorous, glittering fringed bomber over a demure floral-print silk shirtdress, massive hiking boots, and a cool New York Yankees cap, one of the pieces from the new Gucci for MLB (Major League Baseball) collaboration. Later, Guccy indulged her penchant for capricious quirk, wearing an ample caftan printed with a Marie Antoinette–inspired micro floral that incongruously matched the museum’s turreted rooftops. And to water the plants in the museum’s luxuriant park: a bourgeois tweed suit paired with thigh-high logo-printed boots and a checkered granny-esque blanket thrown nonchalantly over the shoulders.
Driving a smart vintage Citroën DS and wearing a fringed leather jacket, Chinese-inspired tunic, and flora-printed stretch leggings, the indomitably curious Guccy headed to Quartiere Coppedè, a location favored by Argento. An eclectic marvel of a compound that mixes Liberty, Art Deco, Baroque, medieval, and Gothic influences, it was made for showing off a soigné little logoed jacket with contrasting leather piping and a vintage-y pencil skirt embroidered with peonies, butterflies, and chirping birds. Or else she opted for a cream-colored leather kimono pantsuit styled with spiky heels, a gigantic quilted tote, and her trusty Gucci for MLB cap.
The passeggiata continued in the wood-paneled Aula Magna of the Ospedale Odontoiatrico George Eastman, a dental hospital built as a philanthropic project by the founder of the Eastman Kodak empire. To attend ponderous lectures without going unnoticed, she chose either a voluminous padded puffa jacket with sporty graphic motifs and pretty floral inserts or a nylon bomber in shocking pink emblazoned with a macro logo. To add to the “look-at-me” effect, instead of a baseball cap, she wore a beaded ‘20s headdress. A bit bonkers? Well, who cares. It looked fantastic.
The Dario Argento sightseeing tour was coming to a close. Tempus fugit, as they say. To round off her homage, Guccy went for an aperitivo at the monumental Hotel Mediterraneo, whose Italian Rationalist style has a disquieting, eerie feel. Sipping a glass of Champagne at the majestic Art Deco bar, she looked her glamorous best in a trapeze-cut velvet dress embroidered with glittering shooting stars. Finally, she teetered out into the Roman night on high-heeled sandals paired with woolly ribbed socks, wearing a racy golden brocade three-piece suit with high-cuffed cropped bell pants and a wide-lapel blazer. Guccy looked so enchanting, even Argento would have been mesmerized, forgetting perhaps a splatter finale and opting, for the first time in his career, for a happy ending instead.
