Our personal spaces define us in many ways, and so how we choose to decorate them reveals much about our souls and personalities. Gucci Décor, the distinctive, imaginative and joyful collection of furniture, furnishings and decorative items from the House, is designed specifically to enable people to dress their own living spaces in a sophisticated, contemporary and creative way.
Reflecting the eclectic, Romantic aesthetic of Creative Director Alessandro Michele, the Gucci Décor Collection incorporates a multitude of House motifs. The collection delivers an exuberant combination of colour, pattern and design, incorporating text and multiple references to the lexicon of Gucci’s rich patterns, which often involve blooms and creatures. There are no rules here, Gucci provides the ingredients with which to curate and customise.
Among the many new concepts in the 2020 Gucci Décor Collection is “Souvenir from Rome”. Referencing the beautiful, opulent marble decoration of the rooms of the Musei Capitolini in Rome, where the House’s cruise 2020 show took place, these pieces feature a design that was used for the invitations for that presentation. The pattern is first hand-painted to achieve a marble effect and then put into production for use with various products: the Souvenir from Rome ornamentation is applied to porcelain ashtrays in a square and star design (this last a brand new shape for the collection), a porcelain circular box, a candle holder with lid in porcelain, a folding metal table, a circular metal tray, wallpaper and a folding screen. All are bound together by the text “Souvenir from Rome”, which appears on each item in this family, except for the star shaped ashtray that shows the GG script.
The new marbling pattern exemplifies the craft and artisanal skill that goes into the creation of Gucci Décor. The collection is 100% made in Italy and it is a true celebration of the rich culture of Italian art and of Italy’s great tradition of artisan makers. This is epitomised by the porcelain in the collection that is produced by Richard Ginori, the renowned Florentine company founded in 1735. Gucci’s eye-catching porcelain pieces make use of difficult processes of firing that require a high level of manual skill and expertise, and often necessitate hand-painting.
The communal table is of course the heart of many homes and to introduce daily luxury to the ritual of dining, Gucci Décor has developed a group of distinctive cloches made from silver-plated brass with an antique effect. Cloches reference meal times at the great houses of the past, and in the context of contemporary life make an eccentric impact. Each of these domed plate covers displays an engraving of a different word or phrase: for example, “Maison de l’Amour”. They can also be personalised with the addition of initials. Every cloche requires a production process of 10 different phases and laser engraving for the script; the vintage finishing is done by hand. The cloches come with five different handles featuring animals and designs taken from the House archive: a hare, hand, snake, wolf and pomegranate. The hare and wolf heads reference 18th and 19th century English and Scottish decorative silver stirrup cups that were used to offer drinks to horseback riders.
Another new addition to the table service collection of pieces is an Asian tea cup in the green Herbarium pattern, and a black “Maison de l’Amour” coffeepot.
There are a multitude of new patterns and designs across the porcelain pieces like candle holders and flower-shaped boxes, many featuring new texts and slogans. One notable new addition is the House’s famous Flora pattern. The design, a painting of colourful flowers of every season by artist Vittorio Accornero, was created for Gucci so it could present Princess Grace of Monaco with the gift of a special silk scarf in 1966. Now this storied decorative motif is applied to two porcelain candle holders with black lids featuring an elegant white porcelain butterfly. A black Gucci logo appears in Gothic script on the pastel pink and pale blue backgrounds of these holders along with the Roman numeral XXV – 25 – which is Creative Director Alessandro Michele’s lucky number.
Another recurring theme for Gucci Décor is the star and eye print. Now the black and white version has been reworked and enriched by incorporating a bright, multicolour rainbow surrounded by colourful stars for a porcelain star-shaped ashtray and three different porcelain mug designs with black snake handles (these handles are inspired by similar forms in the Richard Ginori archive in Florence). For the celebration of the Chinese New Year 2020 – the year of the rat – Disney’s legendary character Mickey Mouse makes an appearance on
two pieces in the Décor Collection: a porcelain mug with lid, and a round porcelain box. These both feature a yellow colour that can also be found on a matching porcelain ashtray that has a black Gucci logo in its centre. Another new motif is a pop-art rendering of red and green fresh and juicy fruit, with a red GG apple print among them (the GG apple motif is formed by interlocking two Gs in a playful take on one of the House’s most famous graphic devices). The GG apple pattern is applied to a porcelain star-shaped ashtray, candleholder with ‘curl’ lid, and mug with lid and snake handle.
Tartan features strongly in the collection. Blankets are woven on a jacquard loom that enables the creation of a reversible fabric with the tartan on one side and an interlocking GG diagonal stripe motif on the other. There are several different tartan colour variations and as well as featuring on fringed blankets, and others that have embroidered patches and a satin trim, these are also used for square cushions with coloured moiré backs. The tartan cushions are decorated with hand-applied animal patches that each take four hours to be sewn on. One of these is of a fawn, an image created by the artist Nathalie Lètè. There are oversized square cushions too, which have a tartan back and a front in the surrealist G squared cloud pattern in elegant velvet, in either green or blue.
The bouquet GG is a floral multicolour pattern that comes from a historical piece found in the House archive; it has been restyled by Alessandro Michele in a contemporary way. It recalls the look of vintage carpets and tapestries and is here used for cushions and armchairs. Square cushions with decorative tassels at the corners have the bouquet GG pattern in two colours, green or blue, while the armchair comes in the same two colours, with coloured cotton fringing at the bottom and brass nail-head details.
For those who wish to make a particularly strong statement there are new wallpapers inspired by motifs used in the ready-to-wear collections and by iconic House patterns: a multicolour macro isometric GG print with a ‘70s look; a toile de Jouy pattern comprising an 18th-century pastoral landscape; a recoloration in a black tone of an existing floral wallpaper pattern with lion heads; a Romantic design featuring Texas thistles on a white base; and a combination of brightly coloured birds and flowers on a blue background with golden stars.
Perfect for an accent piece or room divider, Gucci has added three new hinged folding screens to the Décor Collection. A low screen has a metal structure and three panels on which fabric has been sewn. It is characteriized by a design featuring the artwork ‘Hua Fish’ by the artist Una Woodruff (a hua fish is a mythological creature, a combination of a fish, snake and bird). Another low screen, also in metal, has been covered with the blue version of the G squared cloud pattern in velvet, which adds a surreal note to any space. Then there is a high screen made of wood, with three panels with a black velvet covering. The front is embroidered all over with the multicoloured rising stars pattern, which was used for a cushion in a previous collection, and with the star and eye print embroidered at the top of the central panel, while the back is plain black, with the star and eye print again embroidered at the top of the central panel. Those styles are only available as made-to-order pieces.
Although the Gucci Décor Collection is seasonal, there is a consistency to approach – in the liberal use of House motifs and patterns, and in the colourful and unusual combinations of imagery and pattern – that pervades each and every piece. The result is that these objects feel related. Thus, customers can add to their previous Gucci Décor purchases with new pieces, confident in the knowledge that there will be a seamless connection between them.
Gucci Décor is available in Gucci flagship stores and Gucci boutiques, online at gucci.com and in select speciality stores.