Alessandro Michele, Fashion’s Modern Mastermind

The clothes are snappy enough but my god what an empty mouthed, fawning puff piece of near parodical expectedness. I could not get through it, and wondered if the author had to fortify his resolve to push through with some good brandy. Embarrassing.... NYT are you really intent on committing this painful exercise to print with another five celebs?

Excellent work, Frank (and I admit I was brought here by your account of not writing about fashion until now). You got lucky, a very interesting subject doing interesting things with fashion. I think, often times, fashion is viewed as trite or somehow, unimportant. Instead, I’ve always viewed it as a wearable statement not only about the wearer, but about what’s available to them to use as that statement. What you put on in the morning tells others how you feel that day, who you are, what your interests are (or, are not). It’s a challenge to find “fresh perspectives” that last. Tom Ford, who still designs a collection now and then, has turned himself into a film director. Marc Jacobs, once the “it” designer, finds himself on the outside looking in. Vera Wang makes a chunk of change designing wedding dresses. Maybe Michele is right. “Fashion” as we know it may be on its last legs. What comes next is something Michele and his contemporaries will help create. As to the usual “hits” about the accompanying pictures, it’s easy to throw rocks, complain about teens standing in leaves in clothes that most of us (me included) wouldn’t be caught dead in (if they’d even fit this old man body). It’s also fun to “tut tut” at the cost — without realizing part of the Times’ revenues comes from the massive fashion “industry” located in New York City. Thousands of folks earn millions of dollars designing, manufacturing — yes some on these shores — marketing, photographing, etc. So, relax.

Nice and there's direction enough to do your own interpretation via retro stores, value village, or the back of your own wardrobe - which is really what it's all about for us commoners. (Sorry if you are not one!)

I understand as a commoner it's frustrating to take fashion seriously, but consider these designers are at a rung of the ladder where they are making fashion for fashion sake, and the people who buy it. Fashion isn't fashion houses. But don't claim honesty if you say there isn't one thing that is Gucci that you would love to have. Life isn't what we wear, but everyone at some point loves to play dress up. And say you could wear something really beautiful not just aesthetically but actual art, that is fashion at this level. It's pretty amazing stuff.. I couldn't imagine having it be my world 24/7 but it's something to be appreciated when one has a moment to do so.

I love artistic genius. Unfortunately all I see are are modern day Barbie doll boxes, huge budgets to create and produce and nothing that speaks to anyone except the ultra rich. This is fantasy and I applaud the designer if that is what he is really going for. And the remark about using models of every size?Totally failed to live up to that in these images. Honestly, congrats to the photographer for capturing the fantasy world of Gucci!

Frank, I normally like your writing. At home with the flu today, I skimmed thru this piece, and was astonished at its fawning attitude toward a company that markets $1,200 pants - and that’s what‘s in their bargain bins. All frivolous costumes for the self-indulgent super-rich. If Michele wants to learn about what he calls “the result of life, of trying to find the right way to live in New York,” there are many places he can go to find middle class people trying to survive amidst the gluttony of new condos and blocks with vacant store fronts.

Ostrich feathers? Not cool to kill a living animal for a stupid dress. Things like this give fashion a bad name.

I relish style, beauty, and fashion but once I reached the $7200 dress that looked like a bedsheet I just gave up and stopped reading. Lovely redhead though.

Precious! Outfits for our own modern Marie Antoinettes to play in their own “Petit Trianons” in the Hamptons! Apres nous le deluge- with any luck!

Fashion has been very late to the shift in the way the world's cultures see beauty, the role of women, gender fluidity, and also appropriation. It's been big on nostalgia, if anything. Street fashion, modern women and social media lead the changes in view. As interesting as Gucci can be and as beautiful in the production of luxury, it does not seem fair to give such credit for forward innovation in style and outlook to any couture house. They've all been watching and following street fashion since the 60s.

How many people can afford these impractical and improbable “garments”? Even calling these items garments is a stretch. Holiday ornaments is a more accurate description of stuff that belongs more on a Christmas tree than on a human.

I fear couture fashion more and more reflects the distance between economic classes, here and around the world. Some interesting ideas are certainly present, but at these price points, most of these designs remain out of reach for all but the 1%. But the rest of us will just buy the cheap knock offs, right? Here's the rub: When fashion itself identifies too much with the "have's" historically, we get crazy stuff that ends up not being relevant to any real people's lives. Witness the monstrously huge curled wigs aristocrats, royalty and wealthy landowners wore in the 18th century...at that time they tried to outdo each other with ever more giant, outlandish wigs and hats, some with actual birds' nests sewn in. Some were so heavy that wearer's necks became sore trying to hold these outlandish things on their heads. But the real people worked in the fields and mines and everywhere else, with modest hair and hat styles befitting their "lowly station" in life. I guess if we want to reflect the increasingly guilded age we find ourselves living in, then these fashions, with their high degree of un-wearability, their unbelievable prices and their "let them eat cake" attitude, then we're good. For the rest of us, living in a place called reality, these don't work, no matter how high minded the designer.

Yay beautiful redheads!