<a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/lifestyle/fashion/gucci-sends-a-rabbit-down-the-runway-the-aria-collection-celebrates-the-italian-label-s-100th-anniversary-1.1204921" target="_blank">Gucci</a>, the Italian king of maximalism, has just unveiled its latest offering – a pop-up brimming with eclectic lifestyle pieces we didn’t know we needed. As part of its ongoing centenary celebrations, the fashion house has revealed a stationery shop filled with wondrous wares. Created for Milan Design Week, the temporary shopfront is home to a charming assortment of pieces brimming with colour to help inject a little joy into life. Inspired by a cabinet of curiosities, the shop offers everything from travel accessories and sleepwear to desktop paperweights in a dazzling trip through the Gucci universe. Housed in what looks like a traditional stationery shop, things have all been reimagined Gucci-style, so now notebooks, pens and pencil cases arrive in gleaming metallic foil or covered in interlocking Gs, and toy elephants and giraffes are patchworked in Gucci fabrics. Even trinket boxes come covered in tiny Gucci bees. There are silk pyjamas in signature florals and with matching eye shades, while neck pillows have been created from an assortment of Gucci fabrics, and even skateboards have been decked out in geometric Gs. Gamers – of the old-fashioned ilk – will appreciate the backgammon sets, now with Gucci-patterned backgrounds, and even dice come in tiny, colourful leather pouches. A display inside the shop has a self-playing game of chess, while within the skirting board, there is a tiny mouse-sized Gucci house, that can only been seen by those prepared to lie on the floor. Ridiculous? Absolutely. But under creative director Alessandro Michele this seems to be Gucci’s raison d’etre, to imbue everyday life with a little fun, and urge us all to stop taking things too seriously. In these most serious of times, Michele and Gucci offer us a designer mouse-house as a salve for the soul.
