© Photo: Filippo Fior / Gorunway.com,Photo: Filippo Fior / Gorunway.c

Gucci’s recent pledge to become a carbon-neutral company sent ripples of approval through the industry: it was the first time a major house has pointedly acknowledged the increasingly destructive effect the fashion industry is having on the planet. Earlier this month, CEO Marco Bizzarri released a statement expressing that “A new era of corporate accountability is upon us," and accordingly announced that the company will partner with the UN project Redd+ on four projects to support forest conservation in Peru, Kenya, Indonesia and Cambodia, and will offset all greenhouse gas emissions annually from its own operations and its supply chain. That includes its spring/summer 2020 show – and the invitations, which, in a serious departure from previous Michele extravagances, comprised small, pale blue, recycled paper slips. Here’s everything else you need to know about the Gucci show.

The show was carbon-neutral, with an emphasis on recycling and reusing

© Photo: Filippo Fior / Gorunway.com,Photo: Filippo Fior / Gorunway.c

Energy-efficient LED lights, recyclable paper invitations, a set that will be reused to dress windows after the show, a carbon-offset programme for the guests who flew in which dictates the planting of several thousand trees – Gucci is making serious strides towards improving its environmental credentials. And if you’re wondering why Bizzarri didn’t just cancel the catwalk show and stage a digital-only presentation, it’s because he doesn’t feel the company can do justice to its narrative without an immersive physical experience. “At the moment for me the level of technology is not yet there, so the [show] is the best way to present the ideas of a luxury fashion house like ours,” he told The Guardian.

The show space administered red light therapy

© Photo: Filippo Fior / Gorunway.com,Photo: Filippo Fior / Gorunway.c

Stars on the ceiling glowed red, transforming a clinical Gucci show space into a photographic darkroom-cum-Bluebeard’s-Castle-torture-chamber bathed in red light, as guests took their places on plastic hospital seating facing a conveyor belt runway. Suddenly, the lights flashed from red to bright white. “This is the way to do it,” thumped the soundtrack, as industrial metal roller shutters went up on arched doorways, spitting out models on a conveyor belt.

The opening sequence was a comment on “normative dress”

© Photo: Alessandro Lucioni / Gorunway.com,Photo: Alessandro Lucioni / Goru

The opening sequence of looks sparked serious surprise from seasoned Gucci showgoers – with not a single sequin, bow, badge or logo to be found. In their place? A series of 60 blank beige and ivory cotton and canvas smocks that resembled strait-jackets, worn by barefoot, make-up free models looking for all the world as though they were fresh out of an asylum. These “blank clothes”, according to Gucci, represented “uniforms, utilitarian clothes, the normative dress dictated by society and those who control it” and were designed to show “how through fashion, power is exercised over life, to eliminate self-expression and curb identity”.

The mood was more restrained and pared back than in previous seasons

© Photo: Filippo Fior / Gorunway.com,Photo: Filippo Fior / Gorunway.c

Once the “blank clothes” had passed through the show space, out came a noticeably cleaned up version of Alessandro Michele’s signature aesthetic for Gucci. The 1970s staples were still there – wide-lapel suits, corduroy, Cuban-heeled boots, platform shoes, saucer-sized sunglasses, as well as a sprinkling of floor-sweeping, sequined evening gowns and column dresses – but the outlandish decorative accessories (baby dragons spring to mind), fantastical embroideries and more-is-more-is-more approach to getting dressed we’ve come to expect from Michele were relatively dialled down. It seemed to be an exercise in reinforcing the house codes – the horse-bit buckle, the interlocking G monogram – as well as a more sleek, polished aesthetic. As for the collection’s catchphrase? “Gucci Orgasmique” was repeated across Harrington jackets and on suit cuffs.

There’s a new way to store your Gucci lipstick

© Photo: Filippo Fior / Gorunway.com,Photo: Filippo Fior / Gorunway.c

Pocketed Bandolier-style armbands and gloves were strapped to models, holding gold canisters that turned out to be lipsticks from the new Gucci beauty line. It’s not called war paint for nothing.