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Gucci’s Modern Michael Caine

Gucci stayed true to its roots in the latest menswear collection from the Florentine fashion label, which blended British tailoring, Italian insouciance and an arty new take on sportswear.

Frida Giannini, Gucci’s creative director, has always had a loving Anglophile streak, but in this spring 2012 collection, staged just before lunch in Milan on Monday, June 20, it almost completely about cool Italo-Britannia.

Giannini cut every jacket short, finishing them at the hip, nipped in the sleeves and insisted on a tight armpit, in a late Sixties UK silhouette. But by pairing all these great jackets – in windowpane checks and modernist takes on computer graphics – with skinny, equestrian influenced pants, the designer injected a fresh Latin mood. Nipped and buttoned at the ankle, taught and stretched along the thigh – one could just as easily envision men wearing these trousers on a horse or to a sexy dinner date. Men smart enough to buy the look will look great.

Asked why in a show of some 40 looks, she eschewed socks, Giannini replied: “Are you crazy! Just imagine how weird guys would look with white socks with those pants?”

Her smartest ideas were in sartorial sport chic, when Giannini turned trench-coats inside out, spread jerkins flowing at the back and even invented a new garment – a cape meets mackintosh, finished with hood. Tops in micro quilts, a material traditionally used in fencing, and hooded parkas thermo sealed in leather all ramped up the active quotient, so even though the show echoed gentlemen’s clubs in Pall Mall, it never felt retro.

And, if anyone had any doubt about the theme, the soundtrack said it all. It opened with a sample from the musical finale scored by the great film composer Roy Budd, from Sixties cult movie, “Get Carter,” the north of England gangster movie starring Michael Caine.

Maxi bags in treated rawhide with classic overlaid woven stripes in primary colors, or tough modern derby shoes with contrasting soles, seemed plucked from that movie – or at the very least from a future remake starring a new, suave Caine.

“It’s true Michael Caine was an influence. But doesn’t everyone think he is chic and stylish,” a blooming and expectant Giannini told FWD backstage after this slick and streamlined show and collection.

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