Gucci just created a brand new eCommerce platform, Gucci Vault, to celebrate its 100-year heritage and to give us the chance to shop a vintage upcycled Gucci without burdening the environment.
While brands like Balenciaga and Vans are recently moving to metaverse, Gucci has already moved on from its metaverse collaboration with Roblox to build its own experimental online space.
The Gucci Vault reincarnates Gucci for Gen Z through a digital concept store curated by Alessandro Michele, the brand’s creative director since 2015. It offers Gucci Vintage pieces from the last 100 years that have been freshly reconditioned and customized by Michele and the brand’s artisans to offer Gucci consumers something new from the past. The idea is to do fewer shows and encourage online shopping and fashion show experiences to reduce the carbon footprint associated with the fashion industry.
What Is Gucci Vault?
If you always wanted to own a vintage Gucci, the Gucci Vault is your chance to buy original (upcycled) Vintage Gucci pieces. However, the Vault is more than just Gucci; it presents the artistic vision of emerging designers too.
Designed to exist in perpetuity at vault.gucci.com, the online platform features thirteen young designers from across the globe, including Collina Strada, Shanel Campbell, Charles de Vilmorin, Rui Zhou (LVMH prize finalist), Jordan Luca, Stefan Cooke, Cormio, Rave Review, Gui Rosa, Bianca Saunders, Yueqi Qi, and Boramy Viguier. You can buy your favorite vintage Gucci pieces in the vault and discover new emerging designers while experiencing something more than transactional.
Some of the vintage pieces from the Vault include Vintage Floral print silk shirt (1982), Vintage GG Plus shoulder bag (the 1970s), Vintage leather shoulder bag (1970s), and Vintage leather Bamboo bag (the 1960s).
Images by Gucci
According to Michele, the Gucci Vault was born because he wanted to create a place where ‘impossible’ conversations between objects from different origins, creators, and ears could take place.
“I said to myself: ‘Why can’t a fashion house with a creative director also have a space for expressive, aesthetic, and social contaminations?’” He explained the vision behind the Vault.
Previously, the brand created collaborations or contaminations (as per Michele), lending its vintage floral prints, logo, and designs to brands like The North Face and Balenciaga. With the Vault, the brand is back with one-off vintage pieces.
How Will The Vault Help The Circular Economy?
In addition to the Vault, Gucci announced its decision to only have two shows rather than five, every year.
It takes a lot to set up a fashion show. And, it takes a lot to create new designs every year. With Gucci Vault, the brand aims to refurbish old designs, which will reduce the waste associated with creating new ones. Meanwhile, three fewer fashion shows will reduce, to a certain extent, the environmental impact linked to organizing a show. Michele announced on his Instagram in a very Michele-way that: “We will meet just twice a year to share the chapters of a new story. Irregular, joyful, and absolutely free chapters, which will be written blending rules and genres, feeding on new spaces, linguistic codes, and communication platforms.”
Gucci Vault will help you discover the brand’s rich 100-year old history while letting you catch a glimpse of its future. The brand launched the vintage site during Milan Fashion Week this year available to shop!
What are your favorite vintage Gucci pieces from the vault?
