Gucci’s Beloved Handbags Star Alongside Layla Kardan, Nadine Kanso, Butheina Kazim And Fatima Alharthi In A New Short Fashion Film
Can a bag play a leading role? Make it all about them? Steal your heart as well as the spotlight? Gucci’s Beloved range proves all three to be true
Ask any woman for her life in handbags and we promise she’ll tell you exactly who she is. The relationship between us and this much-fetishised accessory is both intimate and highly revealing; a sartorial weaving of our style with our story. It’s not ever really just a bag – a good one is an emblem; a slice of personal history filled with as many memories as rogue receipts and favourite lipsticks.
Beloved, then, is as apt a name for this Gucci collection as any – paying tribute to the sentimentality that comes with a bag that’s become more of a companion than anything else. Sitting within Gucci’s Beloved line are four neoclassics that Alessandro Michele has anointed with his inspired contemporary approach; each as different as the women who carry them – and the women who we’ve cast in our short film dedicated to them; jeweller Nadine Kanso (@nadkanso), Cinema Akil co-founder Butheina Kazim (@butheinahk), singer-songwriter Layla Kardan (@laylakardan) and TV journalist Fatima Alharthi (@fatima.alharthi).
First comes the Jackie 1961, a half-moon bag fastened with famous piston hardware and struck through with the vintage romance of its birth year; then the GG Marmont, furnished with the three-dimensional initials of the house and an icon in its own right, followed by the Gucci Horsebit 1955, encapsulating the house’s chic equestrian heritage. Finally the Dionysus bag makes its appearance, characterised by two tiger heads shaped into a spur, having made its debut in A/W15 at Alessandro’s first-ever women’s presentation for the house – an auspicious show for such an icon to first be revealed, and a perfect representation of the creative director’s ability to take iconic Gucci codes and deftly twist, turn and usher them into the now.
These now come in a gemstone palette, referencing sapphires, emeralds and rubies, with some also available in bicolour and tricolour iterations as well as exotic skins in the gamut of shades.
The power of a great accessory is not to be underestimated, but the power of a great bag? That’s in a league of its own.
Creative Director: Marne Schwartz. Director and Photography: Mattia Holm. Styling: Nour Bou Ezz. Hair: Sisters Salon. Make-Up: Mel Meyers at MMG. Producer: Steff Hawker.