Will Gucci's new show be at the Brera Academy?

Yesterday, Sabato De Sarno, the new creative director of Gucci whose highly anticipated debut will be one of the highlights of the upcoming Milan Fashion Week, posted on Instagram a Google Maps screen locating him at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts (and, specifically, it would appear to be in its famous courtyard with the statue of Napoleon) along with the caption «Milan, a month before». The location of Gucci's show, in short, is expected to be one of the most famous in the city, where Daniel Lee had already held his second Bottega Veneta show for the FW17 collection a few years ago. A location that takes the brand away from its classic location on Via Mecenate, whose vast spaces had so far allowed for elaborate quasi-theatrical scenes, to place it in a place more symbolically close to the arts and to a more classical vision of luxury. But there is a second and more important observation to be made: over the summer, in fact, it was Sabato De Sarno himself through his personal profile who communicated the aesthetics of the "new" Gucci by providing the public with previews of the next campaign and, now, by suggesting the location of the next show.

From the first announcement of his creative direction in January to the September show, a great deal of curiosity has been building up around De Sarno and Gucci's new direction. The new creative director, a Valentino veteran, is quite well known to industry insiders, and his Instagram, on which we have already seen several references to Gucci since May, maintains that more personal, friendly, and everyday approach that is perfect for launching anticipations to press and fans in a somewhat off-the-record way that seems to give us a glimpse of the preparations for the brand's turnaround with the classic photos we might find on a fashion worker's smartphone capturing a behind-the-scenes look for private use. It is precisely this kind of familiar communication that differs from the institutionalism of official brand channels by being in the position of revealing more by showing less. The perfect example of this was the reveal of the new campaign, which with a single image raised an internal industry uproar that had the brand and its new creative director at its very center, and created much excitement among industry insiders who launched into every possible analysis and prediction for the collection that will be on the runway.

So if Gucci's official channel has been focused on the brand's projects, from luggage and eyewear campaigns, through Beyoncé's tour costumes to new global ambassadors, it is through the new creative director's Instagram that the brand is sowing a precise and controlled sense of hype, all the while building the image of the new creative director, his tastes, and his ways of communicating. Something similar is happening, in New York, with Peter Do and Helmut Lang - which has, however, been much more generous when it comes to teasers and sneak peeks. The strategy, in any case, is working, and all eyes are on Brera and the next, highly anticipated Gucci show.