Feature: New Gucci collection takes fashion lovers to journey through creativity

"Excellent, unusual, fantastic and stylish" was how jewellery designer Yana Raskovalova described the Gucci new fall-winter collection presented at the fashion week running from Wednesday to Monday here.

The new creative director at the Florence-based luxury brand, Alessandro Michele, impressed buyers and critics at the show with an eccentric mix of styles, from ripped denim shirts and renaissance jackets to rich brocaded coats and a light blue see-through tulle gown with balloon sleeves.

A massive handbag with a redesigned Gucci logo, the trademark iconic loafers, high wedges, tiny hats with veils and oversized eyeglasses were among the collection's accessories.

"I found the show very touching, a variety of different epochs that blend one into each other, where the present, the past but also the future mix all together," Giusi Ferre, a renowned fashion journalist in Italy, told Xinhua shortly after the show.

The general feeling was that of an almost heartbreaking spectacle which opened like a box of amazing creations, she said, describing the show as being like a journey towards a new planet, with a mix of nature and technology, music and color.

"My impression was that of a very young collection, full of freshness and new ideas, which I find right because Gucci has nearly 100 years of history and I think it needs to keep young," Ferre highlighted.

Italy's leading economic newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore wrote that Gucci last year posted revenues of nearly 3.9 billion euros (4.29 billion U.S. dollars), up 0.4 percent, ending a stream of negative results.

The new CEO of Gucci, Marco Bizzarri, who was named at the end of 2014, said the results of the brand -- which was founded in Florence in 1921 and is now owned by French parent company Kering -- needed to give a clear signal of "recovery, leadership and market share."

The 2015 results -- acceleration in the fourth quarter and the double-digit growth -- were "an acknowledgment of the courage and contemporary vision of Alessandro Michele," Bizzarri was quoted by Il Sole 24 Ore as saying.

Stephanie Broek, a fashion features editor at Glamour magazine, told Xinhua: "I have always appreciated Gucci's capacity for being really elegant, but also young at the same time," she added.

In her view, you can tell a fashion show is brilliant when the public does not pay attention to the models but just to the clothes, "when everything is only about the clothing, suits, jackets, bags, shoes, and here there were so many interesting things to see."

A number of fashion bloggers, but also curious citizens, gathered at the entrance of the Gucci show. "I work close to here and when I saw so many fashionable people I could not help coming down to have a look," said one of them, Tina Elezione.

"The Milan fashion week is every time an occasion for me to look around, read some magazines and make an idea of the new trends. At the end of this week, I plan to buy a new pair of shoes, and it will certainly be a fashionable one," she said.

The six-day event is hosting 73 runway shows and a total of 184 collections for the fall-winter season of 2016-2017 and will see established brands flanked by labels on the runway for the first time, including Atsushi Nakashima, Diesel Black Gold, Lucio Vanotti and Piccione Piccione.

Also for the first time, a prime minister opened the Milan fashion week. Matteo Renzi took part in the event's inaugural lunch on Wednesday together with personalities of the fashion world, saying "this should become a tradition." Endit