Gucci's new fetish-inspired jewelry should come with a safe word.
Late on November 2, the Italian fashion house staged an epic Spring/Summer 2022 runway show on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles.
Aside from the show's unorthodox locale and colorful cast of celebrity models (Jared Leto and Macaulay Culkin were among the night's cat-walkers), Alessandro Michele's latest outing featured another noteworthy element: sex toy jewelry.
Driving home the season's kink-tinged aesthetic, silver butt plug pendants and vaginal beads hung from necklaces. Some models clutched what at first glance appeared to be rosaries — upon closer inspection, the silvery strands revealed themselves as anal beads.
The unorthodox (and dare we say, multipurpose) jewelry complemented the collection's experimentation with fetishwear and lingerie. Latex tops were paired with over-the-elbow leather gloves, and super-short hemlines revealed sheer thigh-highs.
Gucci's 100th anniversary "Aria" collection, revealed in April, was just as overtly sexual as yesterday's affair. The Fall/Winter 2021 show saw models walk the runway buckled up in leather harnesses, a play on Gucci's equestrian origins.
Leather whips and copies of Sigmund Freud's Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex made an appearance in Michele's "Aria" campaign, a psychosexual feast for the eyes.
Even back in 2019, Gucci toyed with fetish through latex-y layers and Eyes Wide Shut masks.
Michele has always been a provocateur, but his luxury butt plugs push the envelope to new and unexpected levels of cheekiness.
Though I'm sure some will recoil at the thought of wearing sex toy accessories, it's not such a far-out idea. Jewelry brands — Crave and Bijoux Indiscrets, for example — offer vibrators disguised as necklaces. It only makes sense that luxury fashion would want to get in on the action.
