Fur coat; silk and lace dress; acetate sunglasses; silk floral brooch; and metal rings, all from Gucci

Alessandro Michele has been called fashion’s Renaissance man, master stylist, visual poet, costume creator – anything but a designer – but shrugs off any definition with cool nonchalance because there are no such boxes in his world. How does one even put a name to his trippy-hippy-neo-vintagery aesthetic that has sparked up the runways since he took on the creative directorship of Gucci in January 2015?

Knit sweater; embroidered wool skirt; silk scarf; acetate sunglasses; metal rings; leather bag; fishnet stockings; and leather sandals, all from Gucci

In just four seasons, Michele has become more and more inventive, working in a refreshingly experimental way to produce visually delightful fashion that women and men dare to wear, magazines want to photograph, and the industry raves about.

On Lily: Silk dresses; acetate sunglasses; metal rings; embroidered leather bag; and knit socks, all from Gucci. On George: Embroidered and studded leather jacket; denim jeans; and leather boots, all from Gucci

For Gucci Cruise ’17, he took us on what he calls “a deeply archaeological” journey through ’80s London by showing his men’s and women’s collections at Westminster Abbey, crafting a beautifully eclectic storyboard of some 97 looks that merged British fashion subcultures – Victorian Punks, Gothic Scots, and The Queen, off-duty – and pushed his artistic intelligence even more to the fore.

Read more on our November issue.