Even if you’ve never thrown on a piece from Italian label Gucci, there’s no mistaking its iconic logo. One of the brand’s most ardent—and experimental—fans, GucciGhost (aka artist, musician, and former Burton snowboarder Trevor Andrew), has turned that devotion into an expansive art project.
While Andrew’s initial work was meant not for sale, but for public consumption on the streets, his unique take on the luxury label ended up coming across the desk of recently-established Gucci creative director Alessandro Michele. Falling for his flip on the brand, he tapped Andrew’s graffiti-inspired persona for Gucci’s Fall 2016 and Cruise 2017 collection.
While Andrew’s official collaboration with Gucci has spawned genuinely high-fashion masterpieces, we’ve transported Andrew’s aesthetic back into its original environment—the streets of the New York City.
Andrew has worked as a DJ and artist in NYC for several years—plastering his take on the Gucci monogram around various parts of the city—but it’s the reaction that Andrew received from New Yorkers that spawned the very idea of GucciGhost. From his improvised Gucci ghost Halloween costume (created by cutting two holes into a Gucci bedsheet), to New Yorkers’ responses to the hand-painted Gucci logos on his clothing, there would be no GucciGhost without the energy of The Big Apple.
Shooting amongst the architecture found on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, the editorial taps into both Andrew’s skater-influences and areas that can match Gucci’s high-fashion heritage. Whether you glimpse the GucciGhost items cruising down Fifth Avenue, or spot the monogram holding court on a skateboarder’s favorite street corner, it’s Andrew’s artistic touches that turn the gear from Gucci, to “Gucci.”
“[I’ve] spent a lot of time in NYC, where it was less about the clothing brands made, but more about the cult followers who subscribed to them, I was always influenced by the logo-heavy streetwear brands,” notes Andrew. “Gucci was not a streetwear brand, but my love logos made it the God of all brands to me…It was more than just a brand; it was a language to me. Gucci meant ‘greatness.’”
