Channelling 1970s sportswear, Adidas x Gucci has arrived
First revealed as part of Alessandro Michele’s ‘Exquisite Gucci’ collection, Adidas and Gucci have unite on a co-branded capsule. The first drop – comprising 1970s-tinged sportswear – arrives this week
The emblematic visual signatures of Gucci and Adidas are recognised the world over – often copied, but entirely their own. This past February in Milan, as part of Alessandro Michele’s A/W22 offering for Gucci, the two mega-brands united on the runway to create a blockbuster capsule that traverses sportswear and high Italian design for a series of co-branded pieces encapsulating Michele’s always idiosyncratic approach. This week, the first part of that collection – officially titled Adidas x Gucci – arrives in stores.
Symbolic of the capsule is an amalgam of Gucci’s serif logo and the Adidas ‘trefoil’, adorning a typically eclectic mix of mashed-up looks – from classic silk scarves, blazers and polo shirts to requisite sweatpants, caps and sneakers. In particular, a riff on the Adidas Gazelle – a sneaker first created in 1966 for both track and soccer field – encapsulates the collaboration’s retro-inflected mood, recalling the louche sportswear of the 1960s and 1970s, eras to which Michele has long been drawn. Arriving in various hues and fabrications, they are brought together by a distinct sole, imprinted with the Gucci monogram and Adidas trefoil at once.
Adidas x Gucci was first revealed as part of a wider A/W22 collection titled ‘Exquisite Gucci’, in reference to cadavre exquis (‘exquisite corpse’), a French parlour game (these runway pieces will arrive as a second drop in September). Beloved by the artists of the Surrealist movement, each player secretly adds a word or image to a folded piece of paper – when unfurled, the various disparate parts combine to make something strange, and new. Comparisons can be made with Michele’s own magpie-like eye, which spans centuries and continents, combining elements in ways which are always unexpected.
‘[I] juxtapose worlds and meanings, altering the spirit of perception,’ he says. ‘Through these interventions, I celebrate clothes as real optical labs: magical machines that can give birth to fairytales of metamorphosis and enchantment.’
INFORMATION
A version of this article appears in the July 2022 issue of Wallpaper*. Subscribe today!
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Jack Moss is the Fashion Features Editor at Wallpaper*, joining the team in 2022. Having previously been the digital features editor at AnOther and digital editor at 10 and 10 Men magazines, he has also contributed to titles including i-D, Dazed, 10 Magazine, Mr Porter’s The Journal and more, while also featuring in Dazed: 32 Years Confused: The Covers, published by Rizzoli. He is particularly interested in the moments when fashion intersects with other creative disciplines – notably art and design – as well as championing a new generation of international talent and reporting from international fashion weeks. Across his career, he has interviewed the fashion industry’s leading figures, including Rick Owens, Pieter Mulier, Jonathan Anderson, Grace Wales Bonner, Christian Lacroix, Kate Moss and Manolo Blahnik.
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