After Gucci dropped its ad for timepieces and jewellery in May, starring legendary Hitchcock actress Tippi Hedren as a haunting fortune teller, we thought the brand would be hard pressed to top the surrealism we so love about its campaigns.
Yet for AW18, creative director Alessandro Michele has spun his magic once more, this time inviting us into a world of obsessive collectors of art and artefacts.
The campaign, simply called 'Gucci Collectors', launching the Italian house's Autumn/Winter 2018 line, celebrates the oddballs and misfits, those outcast by society because of their unconventional habits or hobbies.
Training the lens on the passionate collators and curators of paintings, antiques, vintage collectibles and other rare memorabilia, Gucci takes its well-documented penchant for eccentrics to the next level by photographing characters in rooms dedicated to their obsession.
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Sat among their possessions – from collapsing piles of chintzy china to walls covered in framed butterfly taxidermy – we're invited to explore their private worlds.
The campaign "champions the notion that those who the mainstream often considers to be oddballs are frequently the most interesting and creative people," a statement from the brand reads, "and that true individuality is a badge of pride."
Shot by British fashion photographer Glen Luchford – the man who has helped Michele redefine Gucci's aesthetic since the designer's first campaign for the brand – we see a pair of legs clad in black lace tights and gold-embellished loafers atop stacks of teapots and dog figurines, and a woman in a knitted hat surrounded by mannequin heads and voluminous wigs.
Alongside shots of the 'Collectors' are scenes resembling a dinner party hosted by Marie Antoinette, with women dressed in bubblegum pink and lime green satin bodice dresses with beauty spots drawn on their cheeks, and sickly sweet iced cakes and fruit piled high upon the table – next to a pair of saccharine Gucci mules, of course.
Michele's preference for the bizarre shows no sign of waning – this house of collectors proves that Gucci is here for the weirdos of the world.