Campaign Spotlight: Gucci Reinvents Tian Pattern on Social Media through #GucciGram
Artists from around China and the rest of Asia take part in Gucci's latest #GucciGram social media campaign to transform the fashion house's new Tian print through new creative mediums.
Gucci's new Tian print began as a culmination of hummingbirds, dragonflies, butterflies, and flowers inspired by 10th-century Chinese tapestries. Now, it dances behind a sulky feline in a short video, it is brought to life through performance art that mixes hip hop with Beijing Opera, and frames photographs of rooms full of taxidermy. Its reinvention is thanks to part two of the Italian fashion house's latest social media campaign, #GucciGram, inviting artists from around the world to take a signature Gucci style and run with it.
The brainchild of Gucci creative director Alessandro Michele, #GucciGram has exploded into a culmination of animation, illustration, even physical products through a combination of commissioned and non-commissioned work curated on Instagram. In this edition of #GucciGram, Michele gathered Asian artists to contribute, and a significant portion hailed from China. In this way, the Tian print comes full circle—it was influenced by the Chinese painters who started it all, like Huang Quan and Xu Xi, before being left to emerging contemporary artists gaining steam in Asia for their work across a wide variety of mediums.
A photo posted by Gucci (@gucci) on Mar 9, 2016 at 10:23am PST
Artists involved include Guangzhou-born Cao Fei, who uses the Tian print on a pair of handmade slippers that she photographs against the backdrop of a Chinese street, juxtaposing luxury with industrial development. Artist Gu Ye takes a break from his fascination with Western art to combine the Tian print with a traditional Chinese image. Chinese fashion illustrator Guo Yong, also known as Acnestories, utilizes the symbols from the Tian print to dress stylish characters from his imagination.
A photo posted by Gucci (@gucci) on Mar 11, 2016 at 4:09am PST
While the campaign mostly takes place on Instagram, fans can also check out the artwork on Gucci's special website, which includes detailed explanations about the work and the artist in both English and Chinese. Some of the artists are also posting the work on their WeChat and Weibo accounts, which is likely giving Gucci some extra exposure in China—the brand itself has been featuring the campaign on its WeChat across three separate posts, with the first dedicated solely to its Chinese artists.