The Guccinheim

Last week in Florence, Italy the Museo Gucci, a "museum" dedicated to the legacy of the 90-year-old fashion house opened its doors. An A-List party was thrown in celebration of the opening and both The New York Times' review and The Guardian's review  of the event (found in their respective online Style sections) highlighted the musical performances and celebrity appearances of the evening, of course discussed who was wearing what, and thennn....criticized the place for not being museum-y enough? I thought that was my job. 


Both articles picked up on the awkwardness of throwing a party as flashy and modern as this one in the Palazzo Vecchio, in which thousands of years of Italian history are embodied. And both the Times and the Guardian, in some way or another, touched on the juxtaposition between the fleeting, temporal nature of fashion and the arresting staying power of really old Renaissance art. Yay!


But wait, what was that Jess Cartner-Morley, fashion blogger for The Guardian? You were "disappointed in the museum" because "it felt lacking in narrative"? Similarly, in The Times' article, "Rocking the Palazzo with Gucci," (yes, that is the real title) Eric Wilson weighs in on couple of bummers: "There was some grumbling that the museum, called Museo Gucci, might have glossed over some key moments, like that whole murder thing." Wilson also astutely observes that, "if this were your only source material, you might think that Tom Ford's greatest contribution to the house was a snorkel-and-flipper set from 2000" (I'm still not sure if he intended for that statement to be hilarious). Whoa, hold the phone. Concerns about misrepresentation and the absence of historical narrative!? Sounds oddly familiar. 


By far the weirdest thing about this piece of news is that after weeks of examining the issue of museums succumbing to commercialism and commodification, an internationally-recognized commercial brand attempts to essentially reverse the process: to institutionalize itself. And what happens?  Fashion correspondents, of all people, complain that they "[want] the stories behind the piles of early-edition monogrammed luggage." 


I suppose we have all come to expect museums to live up to certain standards, no matter the content nor the audience. I'll take that as a really good sign.