A Whole New Take on Beauty: New Artwalls Celebrate the Gucci Manifesto

by Maisie Bowker on 11 February 2020

Gucci celebrates unconventional beauty in their new larger than life ArtWalls.

Gucci celebrates unconventional beauty in their new larger than life ArtWalls.

Gucci has placed its beauty campaign, and it celebrates all things irregular. Do you remember when we were told not to wear red lipstick because it makes our teeth look yellow and draws attention to dental flaws? Well, in 2020 Gucci has swept all that old nonsense away by plastering singer Dani Miller’s perfectly imperfect teeth - she has two large gaps and a smatter of yellowing - on their ArtWalls in London, Milan and Mexico. Her grin is something you can’t escape, forcing us to confront our own ingrained beauty standards to question how this image makes us feel.

ArtWall in Mexico City’s Avenida de Michoacán.

Miller told her Instagram audience how much the image meant to her in a heartfelt Instagram caption that read ‘Growing up you go through an evolution of overcoming insecurities and healing…this [campaign] celebrating me and my friends own style of beauty has felt like a coming out party and a reiteration of feeling comfortable and proud to be myself.’ Interestingly, this imperfection is also seen in the bit of red lipstick that clings to the bottom of her front teeth. She’s got lipstick on her teeth…on a Gucci ArtWall? As a make-up novice and a significantly clumsy girl, I feel quite proud to have my inevitably smudgy mouth reflected as beautiful.

The brand invited British documentary photographer Martin Parr (known for his images of 80s Northerners on the beach), under the art direction of Christopher Simmonds, to explore the theme of contemporary beauty. ‘80s humour and irony are channelled into the work and Parr wryly comments on the female beauty standards we sanctify. Brilliant!

The Gucci lipstick images will appear on the Gucci ArtWalls in Lafayette Street, in Manhattan’s SoHo neighbourhood; Milan’s Largo la Foppa, in the district of Corso Garibaldi; just off East London’s Brick Lane; and Mexico City’s Avenida de Michoacán, in the La Condesa area.

The ArtWalls will be unveiled through February.

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