The notion of travel is emerging as something of a fixation for the Spring 2017 menswear season. Maybe it’s the current state of endless fashion flux, caused by the stretch of the peripatetic Resort collections. Eighteen days ago, Alessandro Michele was in London unveiling his own for Gucci in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey, traveling to Rome the next day to oversee this, his final stand-alone menswear show. “I hate to travel,” he confessed backstage. How strange for one involved in fashion, for whom travel, if not always physical, is certainly ideological, from idea to idea, aesthetic to aesthetic.

The latest Gucci collection, then, was about the dream of travel rather than its actuality. “You can travel in different ways,” mused Michele. “With a book, you can travel. If I change the tapestry of my chair, I sit and I travel.” Presumably that also applies to your clothing; change into a jacket scrolled with Asiatic embroideries, with dragons or tigers or even Disney characters, and you’re dressed in a different place. Or maybe a different time.

The 13th-century travelogue of Marco Polo, Il Milione, was a reference Michele threw out backstage. The veracity of Polo’s travels to Cathay and Manji, now comprising China, have been much challenged, his visions credited to the fabulosity of his imagination rather than the accuracy of his reporting. Michele can be accused of the same, which is no matter. The fabulosity of Michele’s clothes, scrambling place and time, can be seen as his own imaginary travelogue, a fantasy of the foreign, colliding cultures, mixing references, and creating a hybrid that speaks of the here and now.

That’s an interesting notion. Michele emblazoned clothes with the slogan Modern Future. Which was ironic, given the retrospective slant constantly evident in his designs. He said backstage that they were words he didn’t understand. Which was ironic in another way, because for many what Michele is doing at Gucci is the future. For instance, his habit of showing menswear mixed with womenswear, and vice versa, is causing a shift that may prove to be seismic. Other designers have followed suit, folding their men’s shows into women’s. There is obviously a budgetary element, although as Gucci is on course to top 4 billion euros in revenue this year, it’s probably not as huge a consideration as you’d think. Creatively, it makes perfect sense for Michele. And probably will for other designers too, given that the other part of a Gucci show—the actual garments, that magpie trawl through eras and aesthetics—has become the defining fashion look of the moment. Imitation being the sincerest form of flattery.