Have A Fabled Christmas with Gucci

Long before celebrities’ Instagram account takeovers are deemed trendy, there is a very chic trend that happens every Christmas and it stays for the entire season ― not a day! It's the artists’ window display takeover! 

This year, renowned Spanish digital artist and fashion illustrator Ignasi Monreal has been roped in by Italian maison Gucci to work his magic on the label’s store window display.

Born and raised in Barcelona, Madrid-based Monreal’s body of works have garnered major attention from the arts and the fashion circles. 

The digital artiste and fashion illustrator’s artworks are often induced in sensuality, replete with amazing colours and mixed techniques. Eclectic range of subjects such as the ancient cultures and masterpieces of the old masters, and art movements are his source of inspiration. Yet, being a digital artiste, Internet is obviously inevitable for him.

“Internet is my main source of inspiration,” he said in an interview with Plastik magazine, “I find everything surfing the web and find things I’d never imagine. Although it is filled up with crap, there are amazing people, works, images and videos out there.”

Gucci collaboration aside, his notable work also includes a music video by singer FKA Twigs entitled “Two Weeks”. In this video, the singer, multiplied, danced in a painting, appearing as the camera slowly pans out from her crowned head in the centre.  

For the holiday season display, which comes as part of the maison’s integrated Gift Giving campaign, Monreal uses a set of giant, eccentric and ornate cabinets known as “temples” as the focal point of his visual communication. 

The temples are complemented with a candy-pink LED neon frame and emblazoned with text from Trionfo di Bacco e Arinanna (A Song for Bacchus) a famous poem from the Renaissance period by Lorenzo de’ Medici.

 

As the temple windows display Gucci’s Gift product in a very striking and imaginative way, Monreal placed yellow mannequins that rotate into view like figures on a giant mechanical clock. 

The mannequins are complemented with yellow room-set panelled with boiserie (wooden panelled) walls, and a hand-brushed parquet floor that contains the entire mise en scène with warm, mesmerising glow.  

Window displays aside, Monreal also created a book that showcases a whole series of digitally-created artworks with a narrative, alluding to the treasured fable of The Fall of Icarus. 

The catalogue features work that incorporate Gift Giving selection of products such as belt-bags encircling a classical statue, small leather goods form part of contemporary takes on Renaissance-style still lives, a king snake wraps around the legs of a girl in boots and handbags with chain shoulder straps, hanging from a road sign.

“Icarus fascinates me because of his story, which could be read a bit like a mantra, I guess,” says Monreal of his inspiration for Gucci Gift Giving campaign catalogue. “If you fly too close to the sun, you’re going to get burned. If you fly too low, you’re going to drown in the sea. It feels uite bluntly, obvious, but I find it quite timeless and reassuring.”

Monreal continues, “You have to find the middle point to land on the other side. It’s not a cosmic science, just a tricky human condition. Icarus himself is a very romantic character and of course, symbolic of everything young and pretty. Very East London!”

Wait, the fun has not ended! Special interactive content will be available on the Gucci app as well. They are filters to customise photographs, digital greetings cards that can be personalised and sent, digital version of the Gift Giving book and a software that will animate Gucci shop windows when customers scan a sticker displayed on the glass. Also look forward to Monreal’s homepage takeover on Gucci.com.

Gucci Gift Giving 2017 selection is available now at all Gucci stores and online at www.gucci.com.

*Photos courtesy of Gucci; photo of Ignasi Monreal courtesy of Delfino Sisto Legnani and Marco Cappelletti. 

Gucci - Lot 2.21.00 & 3.23.00，Pavilion Shopping Centre, 168 Jalan Bukit Bintang, 55100 Kuala Lumpur; Lot G37 Ground Floor Suria KLCC, Kuala Lumpur City Centre, 50088 Kuala Lumpur; Lot 228 & 229, Ground Floor, The Gardens Mall, Lingkaran Syed Putra , Mid Valley City, 59200 Kuala Lumpur.