Creative director Daniel Lee has assuredly created his own design language for the brand through his increasingly experimental play with materials, silhouettes (hello, The Pouch) and techniques. This hasn’t changed even though the terminology for the label’s collections, so to speak, has. In fact, the continuity only serves to highlight his artistic MO as well as the preciousness of craft.

Variations of the beaded tank dress and separates from the Salon 01 collection (bottom picture) – the equivalent of Spring/Summer 2021 – first turned up in Wardrobe 01 (or what the house calls Resort 2021; top picture). The result of embroidering mid-sized brown and beige wooden beads together to create a chevron pattern, the pieces remain standouts in their respective “seasons” with the only difference between them being the addition of fringing – trimmed with even chunkier beads – along the hemlines of those from the latest collection.

Inspired by formica tiles and homeware appliances of the ’50s, the geometric prints from the brand’s seminal Spring/Summer and Fall/Winter 1996 collections (left) – a pair of shows that introduced to the world the concept of “ugly chic” – are one of the brand’s most iconic.

It seems befitting then to revive them for its equally momentous debut of Raf Simons as co-creative director alongside the brand’s long-time doyenne (and brains behind said pattern) Miuccia Prada – and give them a suitably Raf-ian kick.

Turning up on separates that similarly reflect the meeting of these two minds (think hoodies paired with A-line midi skirts; see pictures on right), the original motif has been overlaid with a silkscreen of text and graphics by Belgian artist Peter de Potter, a long-time Simons collaborator.

Creative director Alessandro Michele has been on a mission to recast how we look at fashion’s schedule and its ephemerality. The name of his latest collection, Ouverture Of Something That Never Ended, in itself hints at the industry’s cyclic nature.

An ouverture has to do with beginnings, orchestral and such, and the man’s cleverly included re-editions (bottom row) of key looks from Fall/Winter 2015 (top row), his debut collection for the house. That these contained some of the most foundational and recognisable design elements that he would build on to make Gucci what it is today makes them all the more significant: pussy-bow blouses, pleated silk dresses, grandma florals and, lest we forget, the Princetown fur-lined loafers.

The low-key Danish designer loved for her dreamy, cloud-like dresses introduced her Encore collection last June, taking deadstock materials from seasons past and refashioning them into cushions and homeware. In its fourth and latest edition, she is finally playing to fashion fiends as she reissues designs from earlier collections (right).

Made with the last metres of fabric that she has left, the designer has brought back some of her most recognisable pieces. Among them: the Tone & Tula set from Fall/Winter 2019 (left) – a collection all about artful “undoneness” – made with gauzy organza adorned with fil coupe flowers for a pretty yet tactile touch.

Chief on executive creative director Stuart Vevers’ mind for Spring/Summer 2021: challenging how collections are created and considering their impact on communities and the environment. It’s led him to up the stakes on something that he’s had an affinity for since coming on board eight years ago – revisit and recontextualise pieces from the brand’s archives – resulting in a line-up dubbed “Coach Forever”.

Bags, for example, are crafted from vegetable-tanned, naturally dyed leather or recycled materials. He’s also given fans (or pop culture enthusiasts) another shot at owning some of the brand’s most memorable pieces from past seasons as well as its often-sold-out collaborations by rehashing them, including the trench coat and triangular clutch printed with Jean-Michel Basquiat’s distinct scribbles from last year (as seen in the top row below and given new life, modelled by the label’s celebrity friends this season).

This article first appeared in the March 2021 The No-Rules Edition of FEMALE