Giorgio Armani has seemingly blasted Gucci for going too far with their shows.
Giorgio Armani
The 83-year-old fashion mogul hit out at the fashion house for their controversial Milan Fashion Week Autumn/Winter 2018 presentation last week, which saw models walking the runway holding realistic-looking dragons and replicas of their own heads, and insisted its important not to go "overboard" with staging, but to let the clothes do the talking.
Though he didn't mention the brand, or creative director Alessandro Michele, by name, he told WWD: "No, I don't want to be a part of this. Fashion can't be a means to have the media talk about you. We have to move and excite but without going overboard - it's too easy.
"I have never wanted to trick consumers, and what I show on the runway is what customers can find in stores."
Alessandro previously revealed the Gucci show was partly inspired by the 1984 essay 'A Cyborg Manifesto' by Donna Haraway and insisted fashion is about more than just what will sell.
He said: "Limiting fashion to something that only produces business is too easy."
And he explained the severed heads were used to represent accepting the self and "looking after your head and thoughts."
The show itself took place in a room that was decorated to resemble a hospital operating theatre, with green painted walls and hospital equipment lining the runway, and was attended by those who had received invitations sent out in what appeared to be medical waste bags containing timers that counted down to the show's date, along with 'parental advisory' warnings written across the sides.
Alessandro explained after the show his own job was similar to that of a surgeon.
He said: "Our job is a surgical job: cutting and assembling and experimenting on the operating table."
Tagged in Georgio Armani