Top image: Gucci SS18 by Ignasi Monreal

Alessandro Michele is ending the year with a bang. Having placed a strong emphasis on supporting emerging, often digitally-successful talent – the likes of Coco Capitan – the creative director has managed to strengthen Gucci’s affiliation with grassroots arts scenes across the world, both on-and off-line.

For the Italian brand’s SS18 campaign, Michele has decided to marry digital fantasies with history lessons by Gucci-fying iconic, classical artworks.

Selfies, jet-setting “international youth” and life on Mars with an iPhone defines the mysterious and uncanny illustrations, titled Utopian Fantasy. Created by one of the recent participants of the #GucciGram project, Spanish artist Ignasi Monreal, the illustrations serve as a campaign for the Italian fashion house’s SS18 collection.

Time travelling between multiple dimensions, from science fiction to Ancient Greece and Dutch Renaissance, Utopian Fantasy reworks famous artworks from various centuries and cultures with distinctly 2017/18 tropes. Monreal’s series is a nod to the most crucial cultural moments, movements and ideologies that have shaped and continue to define our present, extending Gucci’s book of references.

While at surface level, the series underlines the parallels between fine art and fashion, the stories in the images serve as an affirmation of Gucci’s presence and desire to relate to the most diverse communities in all corners of the globe.

The full campaign is set to launch in January 2018.