Camille Miceli touched down in Capri this week with her launch collection for Emilio Pucci, making a splash in the still not-so-warm, late-April waters with an intense “experience” enjoyed by 160 guests flown in from Paris, Milan, and London. The US contingent was represented by the rapper Gunna, whose performance capped off three Pucci-fied days of activations and dolce vita—decadent dinners and hours-long lunches at Bagni di Tiberio; morning yoga classes for stylish Pucci yoginis; and “how-to-style-a-scarf” lessons in the label’s store on Via Camerelle, the island’s mini via Montenapoleone.
The see-now, buy-now collection—called La Grotta Azzurra and released in three drops, the first of which launches exclusively on Mytheresa.com today—was presented live in various tableaux vivants throughout the island, with Pucci-clad models looking very much à l’aise in the surroundings. Nor surprisingly so, as Capri was Marchese Emilio Pucci’s beloved holiday destination, where his high society friends-turned-clients used to spend long barefoot summers.
After various incarnations, Pucci has been entrusted to the experienced hands of the ebullient and cool Miceli, whose approach to the label’s reboot seems to be straightforward and layered in equal measure. “Pucci isn’t a conceptual brand, it’s a lifestyle brand, so its message has to be direct,” she said. That doesn’t mean having to simplify it to the point of reducing its impact. Quite the contrary. For Miceli it means energizing it further, amping up the joie de vivre factor already embedded in its codes. Energy is an attractive trans-generational attitude, and permeating the label with a positive, slightly trippy vibe will help engage for a wider, younger audience.
Miceli also highlighted what she called Pucci’s “humanity and peculiar sensibility,” which she enhanced, for example, by creating hand-drawn iterations of the famous prints. “I think that digitized patterns strip Pucci’s motifs of the imperfections that are part of their unique charm,” she explained. In the new collection, which is full of covetable, cool separates, the patterns’ pyrotechnics are offset by the use of few solid colors. Often the prints were just used as contrasting details—a colorful padded trim on a black or beige cotton cropped jacket; a printed foulard criss-cross closing a short black sleeveless shift dress; a flower-flame motif blooming at the front of a pair of bell-bottom capri pants in white cotton.
Making Pucci desirable, as she said, “to my 21-year-old son’s circle of girlfriends, as well as to my mother or to my millionaire copines,” is part of Miceli’s mission to balance sophistication with accessibility, offering pieces that can make an entrance while retaining ease and nonchalance. Being a skilled accessories designer, she has cleverly expanded the offer, working around the shape of two interlocked little fishes, playfully replicating the P in Pucci. “It’s actually more a symbol than a logo,” she said. Miceli had it tranlated into enameled bracelets and metallic necklaces; into the outlined rubber soles of funny flip flops; into buckles decorating wooden clogs and high-shine platforms; and into a cute bag shaped like a fish. Prices varies from reasonable to reasonably high. The attractive energy of Pucci “makes for a spontaneous, impulsive buy,” said Miceli, “so prices have to be calibrated accordingly.”
The Pucci reboot will proceed along a non-seasonal cadence. “The idea of season is démodée,” Miceli said, so jumping on the fashion show merry-go-round isn’t on the agenda yet. “It’s easy to have models walking a catwalk, but this see-now, buy-now formula with monthly new drops keeps you on your toes, creatively speaking, as you have to constantly find new ideas to engage the customers.” Seeing as she seems to have a rather substantial amount of cheerful optimism, Miceli doesn’t have to worry about exhausting her energy supplies anytime soon.
