70 years ago, Aldo Gucci created the hero Gucci Horsebit Loafer, a slip-on shoe embellished with an equestrian metal tack. Conceived in 1953, it might be bordering on three-quarters of a century old, but the classic kicks aren’t on the wane or threadbare just yet – not too shabby for a septuagenarian.
Decamping to Spazio Maiocchi to celebrate the milestone anniversary, the house transformed the art venue and culture-blending social space into a multi-disciplinary immersive experience that’s open to the public and engineered a bombastic invite-only bash for the first day of Milan’s Men’s Fashion Week.
Called The Gucci Horsebeat Society, it became a kind of exclusive country club for the cool kids of newguard fashion, taking a different tact with a panoply of installations, live performances, exhibitions and videos curated by Alessio Ascari, Spazio Maiocchi’s creative director. On view for three days only, artworks by 10 up-and-coming artists, designers and creatives reinterpret the transformative iconography of the Horsebit – the metal clamp of a horse’s bridle tack that’s become one of Gucci’s most iconic signatures and features on the red-letter loafer – many of which are rendered with digital or AI-generated imagery. The GG Canvas and the Gucci Web – a striped saddle girth – are recontextualised too. Morphed, twisted and displayed amid wall-to-wall moquette carpeting, the three-dimensional visual language of the exhibition celebrates the Horsebit’s metamorphosis since its emergence at the house.
Playing in a loop in the screening room is Bolade Banjo‘s historical exploration of the Horsebit’s legacy. Opening onto the courtyard, a bedroom-like space unveils an arresting image photographed by Charlie Engman and is complimented by Sylvie Fleury’s furry Bedroom Ensemble II installation circa 1998 – the only historical artwork in the exhibition – setting a suggestive stage for a hanging square-heeled Horsebit pump in red patent leather from Tom Ford’s Gucci AW95 show. Elsewhere, Crosby Studios’ Harry Nuriev built Horsebit-inspired furniture for a conceptual ‘patio’, Anna Franceschini curated a ‘cabinet of curiosities’ overflowing with Gucci archive artefacts and Pitter Patter sculpted a wooden desk with stylish knee-length legs shod in Gucci bootcut-trousers and Horsebit loafers to hold it up.
In a room entirely veneered by Australian image-maker Ed Davis, looks from Gucci’s spring collection were displayed on mannequins, laid out like an art exhibition alongside the commissioned works. Unfurling like a balancing act between past and future, archival references arrived streamlined and simplified with precise tailoring and sportswear silhouettes integrating the Horsebit motif into a traditional Prince of Wales check. Elongated three-piece suits with razor-sharp lapels were undercut by ’70s style bootcut trousers and styled with square-frame glasses al la Alessandro Michele Bowling sets were composed of gently oversized Hawaiian shirts and Bermuda shorts, and reprised Davis’ collage motifs with techy sentiments. As such, the treated surfaces of these sporty/workwear hybrids offered optical illusion augmentations of the GG logo, digitally distorted into a glasslike glazed effect, laser-printed on denim-like nubuck leather, or devised in a doughy, tactile boucle weave. Equally suited to a cyber-aesthetic, there was a liquidy silver ensemble made up of a hooded windbreaker and shorts and a washed denim jacket tucked into wide-leg pants with thermo-incrusted micro mosaic mirror tiles that made it twinkle like a sartorial disco ball.
Magnified and amplified, a fresh rendition of the Horsebit loafer was logically included, this time with a rubber-sole. The Horsebit 1955 bag on the other hand, maintained its original form. Other pieces of arm candy, though, were re-energised with the aforementioned, distorted motifs, including a GG satchel, a camera bag, a waterproof duffle diving bag and a large canvas tote taken straight out of the archives. There was a lacquered longboard too, for summer skating Gucci style with a GG-patterned grip.
Photography courtesy of Gucci. ‘The Gucci Horsebeat Society’ event is now open to the public until June 18, from 10am to 6pm daily. Discover the exhibition here.
