LIBERTÉ, ÉGALITÉ, SEXUALITÉ: A critic to Gucci’s latest campaign about May 68.

by Maite de Orbe

Paris has been referenced in innumerable creative movements and has been a meeting

point for different generations of artists. It is, therefore, not surprising the nostalgia this place

inspires, and nostalgia is a tricky feeling as it usually leads to an idealization of the past époque.

This is happening now, with the return of the vintage to the stores. It can be seen in the fashion

industry and it’s marketing. An example of this is the new Gucci campaign ‘Dans les Rues’ (In the

streets), based on the events of May 1968 in France, turning the fifty-years-ago revolution into the

most nostalgic, bourgeois and beautiful set to present the pre-fall 2018 clothes. May 68 revolution

was a revolutionary movement lead by students and the working class to fight certain conditions

they had. Influenced by both the hippie movement in the United States and Maoism in China,

french strikers complained about the lack of sexual liberty, the Vietnam and Algeria conflict, and

demanded improvements in the conditions of the working class and the resignation of the president

De Gaulle. It was the first time in the history of France where students and working class became

one to seek for social change. Documented by photographers and filmmakers of the time, such as

Bruno Barbery and Jean-Luc Godard respectively and their work has been appropriated by Gucci

in order to create a strong dialogue of pureness that is commonly associated with the past. Artist

and writer Martha Rosler talked about appropriation, institution and decontextualization in her

essay ‘In, around and afterthoughts (On documentary photography)’ (1981) that I will reference

further on to support my arguments; how Gucci has not respected the revolutionary’s intentions of

May 1968 and has perverted them for it’s own benefit . In this essay I will explain how the

processes of decontextualization and appropriation go hand by hand and how they are present in

the campaign.

Rosler talks about ‘the cultural myth of objectivity’ referring to an assumption that

documentary and photography tells a unique and universal truth of what happens, and relates this

to the possibility of perpetuation of class domination. As a start, it is important to understand how,

since the birth of photography (and later on film), images have had a huge power as way of

documenting of the past. Photographs are for everyone to understand. As Susan Sontag (2003, p.

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17) explains ‘In contrast to the written account (…) a photograph has only one language and is

destined potentially for all’. Even nowadays, where postproduction can alter everything of an

original image, videos and photographs of past events are our main source of understanding how

these events were. Rosler makes a connection between this assumption and the use of the images

to perpetuate institution’s power, introducing the idea of class domination; ‘social institutions as

serving one class by legitimating and enforcing it’s domination while hiding behind the false mantle

of even-handed universality’. She talks about how the ‘possibilities for radical demands that photos

of poverty and degradation suggest’ are perverted when they become institutionalized ‘into the

very structures of the government’ (Rosler 1981). Now, although Rosler talks about documentary

photography in relation to activist photographers, this perversion can be extrapolated to other

sceneries. Gucci’s ‘Dans les rues’ (Gucci, 2018) makes use of the documentation of what was a

communist, student and working class revolution, promoting the consumption of a high fashion

brand’s products. Using only the convenient information for them -showing empowered beautiful

youth striking- they launched a short film about the campaign in which they avoid to show the

actual violence, ideology or injustice happening at the time. This is, they have decontextualized the

events for their own benefit and appropriated them to create something new which is not faithful to

the truth of the revolution. Therefore, this cynical attitude perverts the original images in which it is

based. Using a fantastic postproduction it achieves to copy this vintage aesthetics that grants it the

power to seem as pure and strong as the actual revolutionary movement was. Gucci reinforces the

belief in the cultural myth of objectivity.

We know about the anger and dissatisfaction that lead the events of May 1968 via the

documentation of photographers and filmmakers of the time. The revolution went as follows;

students first took over the University of Nanterre and it was, along with Sorbonne University and

the Latin Quarter one of the main spots for the student meetings and where the aggressive

encounters with the police took place. Then, students lined up with the working class, trade unions

and communist parties for a de-centralized wildcat strike that eventually spread all over the

country. ‘By 16 May – less than two weeks after the first riots – roughly 50 factories throughout

France were occupied by over 200,000 workers on strike’ (Warner, 2018).

Photographer Bruno Barbery was, along with Gilles Caron and Claude Dityvon one of the

photographers that recorded the events. Barbery explained in a recent article written for The
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Guardian, how ‘French television was nationalized at the time and they were on strike too, so no

news of the revolution was being broadcast’ (Barbey, 2014). It was photographer’s responsibility

who supported the movement -which was easy due to the brutality of the policeman against the

citizens- to document the conflict from the inside. As Barbey explains, ‘I once saw policemen beat

a pregnant woman on the ground’.

These photographers ‘aesthetics' have been a reference for Glen Luchford, director of the Gucci

campaign, by ‘recalling the documentarist style black-and-white photography that emerged from

the protests’ (https://www.gucci.com/us/en/st/stories/advertising-campaign/article/pre-fall-2018-

shoppable, 2018). Gucci talks about the style and forgets about the conflict behind it, but it is so

beautifully done that spectators fall in love it. This fact is not only detrimental to those who took part

in the revolution, but also to the photographer’s work. In a compilation book about photography as

activism, Michel Bogre (2012, p.xv) wrote ‘so if images of horror, pain, and suffering are sold as art,

and artists chose the documentary aesthetic with no connection to conscience or compassion,

what power and veracity does a true documentary image have?’. There is a sort of invalidation of

the photographs when they are misused.

Back to Rosler’s essay, she talks about activism and institution, showing concern on how

photographs taken with an aim of changing certain conditions in people's lives, follow paths that

were not meant by the photographer. ‘This mainstream documentary has achieved legitimacy and

has a decidedly ritualistic character. It begins in glossy magazines and books, occasionally in

newspapers, and becomes more expensive as it moves into art galleries and museums’. I believe

there is a parallelism between the steps in this ritual of which she speaks and the ones the events

of May 1968 have followed. Activism in the acts of strikes and photography, perversion of the acts

by means of the institutions (galleries) and the fashion industry (Gucci).

Fashion’s relationship with history does not have to be this way, though. As the following

examples will show, fashion has lead to social change in many occasions before, which diminishes

Gucci’s possible defending arguments. It is the relation between history and fashion that will define

it’s impact.

Coco Chanel was a designer that liberated woman from many oppressions thanks to her

revolutionary thinking, choosing comfort over social pressure and redefining the way women

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should dress up. Due to her innovations, the dividing line between male and female clothes was

blurred for the first time.

Other designers like Katharine Hamnett have used T-shirts as a form of activism, like the one she

wore in 1984 in a social event with Margaret Tatcher that read “58% Don’t Want Pershing”,

referring to ‘a European opinion poll about the proliferation of American cruise and Pershing

nuclear missiles across Europe without consulting the electorate’ (Hamnett, 2018) She showed

Tatcher and the press her opinion in the most simple but effective way.

Therefore the social change Luchford was aiming for when referencing May 68 is questionable. Is

it talking about youth empowerment? (A youth that barely could pay any of Gucci’s clothes) Is it

about sexual liberation? What it does not seem to mention at all is the working class conditions in

that time and the revolution’s motivation to change them. The main difference between Coco

Chanel or Katharine Hamnett and Gucci is that the two first ones did something that led to social

change. It was their way of activism. On the contrary Gucci has avoided the political aspects of a

movement, borrowed a scenery and got it’s clothes into it. The first one does, the second one

borrows.

Taking advantage of the feeling of nostalgia that both France and youth provoke ‘Dans les rues’ is

a beautiful campaign hard to dislike aesthetically that could remind us of the love stories, the weird

feeling of a lost youth and the beauty of their arrogance in films like The Dreamers (2004) and

Regular Lovers (2005), both based on the context of the strikes and it’s aftermath.

Although it was the biggest labour stoppage in France -which actually resulted in betterment of the

labour conditions by negotiations between the trade union leadership and the Prime Minister

Georges Pompidou-already ten years ago, John Lichfield wrote and article for The Independent

(2008) saying that ‘yet, 40 years on, it is the student revolt which is most remembered and the

workers' revolt which has been almost forgotten.’ And Gucci succeeds in reinforcing this oblivion.

As explained along this essay, decontextualization and appropriation to one’s benefit can not only

be offensive to the past events, but it also discredits photographer’s documentary work. At the

same time the results of a new work based on these processes makes the spectator question the

campaign’s intention, as it does not respond to any kind of activism, which has been shown to exist

in the fashion industry. Understanding the effects of nostalgia and making use of the vintage

fashion, copying an aesthetics has given Gucci a powerful credibility although, unfortunately, this
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has nothing to do with what was the biggest revolutionary movement in France since World War

Two.

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Barbey, B. (2014) 'Bruno Barbey's best photograph: the Paris protests of 1968', The Guardian, 21

August. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/aug/21/bruno-barbey-best-

photograph-paris-1968-protests (Accessed: 20 May 2018).

Bogre, M. (2012) ‘Photography as activism: Images for social change’. Oxon, UK: Focal Press.

Gucci (2018) Pre-Fall 2018 Campaign: Gucci Dans Les Rues | Gucci. Available at: https://

www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcSQcEn6b5s (Accessed: 20 April 2018).

Hamnett, K. (2018) 'Katharine Hamnett: the protest T-shirts you see today tend to be a bit namby-

pamby', The Guardian, 8 March. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2018/mar/08/

katharine-hamnett-the-protest-t-shirts-you-see-today-tend-to-be-a-bit-namby-pamby (Accessed: 21

May 2018).

Lichfield, J. (2008) 'Egalité! Liberté! Sexualité!: Paris, May 1968', The Independent, 23, February.

Available at: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/egalit-libert-sexualit-paris-

may-1968-784703.html (Accessed: 27 May 2018).

Regular Lovers (2005) Directed by Philippe Garrel [Film]. France: Ad Vitam Distribution

https://www.gucci.com/us/en/st/stories/advertising-campaign/article/pre-fall-2018-shoppable (2018)

(Accessed: 22 May 2018).

The Dreamers (2004) Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci [Film]. France, Italy: TFM Distribution,

Medusa Distribuzione, Fox Searchlight Pictures

Warner, M. (2018) '“Be realistic, demand the impossible!” May ’68 in photos', British Journal of

Photography, 17 May 2018. Available at: http://www.bjp-online.com/2018/05/may68/ (Accessed:

25 May 2018).

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Rosler, M. (1981) ‘In around and afterthought (On Documentary photography) Available at: http://

web.pdx.edu/~vcc/Seminar/Rosler_photo.pdf (Accessed: 31 May 2018)

Sontag, S. (2003) ‘Regarding the pain of others’. Great Britain: Penguin.