Gucci Presents Its Aria Collection to Soundtrack f/ Rick Ross and More

Gucci celebrates 100 years with a virtual presentation for Aria, a much-anticipated collection that looks to the label’s past and future.

Debuting Thursday, the special runway film was co-directed by award-winning photographer Floria Sigismondi and Gucci’s creative director Alessandro Michele, who described the collection as “a deep and ecstatic diving in everything we yearningly miss today.” The video opens with models entering a fictional venue called the Savoy Club, a reference to the London-based hotel where Guccio Gucci worked as a liftboy before returning to Italy to start his fashion label.

Aria served as somewhat of a time capsule that referenced various Gucci eras, most notably that of Tom Ford’s, who helmed the Italian fashion house from 1994-2004.

“Gucci was born under some kind of constellation, because the power it holds is nearly inexplicable,’’ Michele told reporters Thursday. “Tom [Ford] understood right from the beginning that Gucci had some kind of magnetism, this cult power.”

The collection included nods to 1970s suiting, old Hollywood, bondage, and, of course, equestrian style. It also featured designs from the “hacking lab,” where Michele incorporated the Balenciaga logo into the upcoming Gucci pieces.

“I am trying to renew for the millionth time this brand, this name, this myth, this saga, because Gucci is a complex container that holds many, many things,” Michele said.