Gucci's Road To Sustainability

In an industry that is responsible for 10 per cent of the global greenhouse gases, the Italian luxury giant is a shining example of how companies can tackle their environmental impact successfully

- Sanika Achrekar

In May this year. the Gucci Instagram handle carried a series of posts excerpted from Creative Director Alessandro Michele’s diary written during the pandemic, in which he evaluates his work, and the future of fashion. “These days of confinement, in a suspended time that we can hardly imagine as free,” Michele wrote, “I try to ask myself what is the meaning of my actions. It’s a vital and urgent questioning of me, which demands a careful pause and delicate listening.”

A few days later, in another excerpt, he made a startling announcement: “I will abandon the worn-out ritual of seasonalities and shows to regain a new cadence, closer to my expressive call. We will meet just twice a year, to share the chapters of a new story... I would like to leave behind the paraphernalia of leitmotifs that colonised our prior world: cruise, pre-fall, spring-summer, fall-winter.” Gucci, as he announced, will be, going forward, cutting down the number of annual fashion shows it organises from five to two. It was a piece of news that stunned the world of fashion. Gucci was upending a tradition that went back decades.

Michele’s main reason for making this decision, a careful reading of his diary reveals, was his fears about climate change and a desire to work towards sustainability. “Our reckless actions have burned the house we live in,” he said in another post, “We conceived of ourselves as separated from nature, we felt cunning and almighty. We usurped nature. We dominated it and wounded it.”