To celebrate the 100th anniversary, Gucci announced the ‘Gucci in Kyoto’ exhibition. The brand said no other city is more suitable for this project than Kyoto, a city where tradition and innovation coexist.
The first stage of Gucci in Kyoto is Kiyomizu-dera, which is registered as a World Cultural Heritage site as “Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto”. In its collection, named “Aria”, which means air in Italian, Alessandro Michele set out the vision that the life of the brand Gucci would be reborn in the breath of light and nature.
The protagonist of the second exhibition is the bamboo-handled handbag, which has repeatedly appeared in Gucci’s history and has been loved over time since its birth in 1947.
The hands-on exhibition “Gucci Bamboo House” set in a townhouse in the center of Kyoto where floats stand at the Gion Festival. The venue, the former Kawasaki Family Residence, is a townhouse built in the 1920s when Gucci was founded and is designated as a tangible cultural property of Kyoto City. The space where Japanese and Western architectural styles and various designs coexist and harmonize, such as traditional tea room and Western-style room, large wall structure and brick wall, resonate with Gucci’s eclectic philosophy.
The tea room designed by a master craftsman of Sukiya has been recreated into a space that combines traditional Japanese tea ceremony with the world of Gucci’s beauty. For the exhibition at this venue, the tea room was set up by Urasenke Kyoan Gyotei Karma Munehisa Nara, and the flat book was written by calligrapher Shishu. In the room facing the garden with bamboo grove, while taking in natural light and wind, Gucci’s valuable archives such as bamboo handle bags and works using bamboo are highly acclaimed worldwide.
Gucci’s high jewelry collection is presented at the third exhibition. The three exhibitions are open to the public from July 22, 2021 to August 22, 2021.
Images courtesy of Gucci