gucci's gorgeous garden room

I found a gold foil pleated skirt in Zara the other day and found myself implausibly drawn to it. I've not worn a pleated skirt since school uniform days, so what was going on? Turns out I was remembering an advert I had seen where people in crazy yellow and gold clothes were posing awkwardly in a gorgeous room covered with an elaborate botanical mural:

 

The clothes Zara is riffing on come from Gucci Resort 2016 and they are very botanical. But what about that garden room? Pleasingly the advert comes in Youtube flavour too (complete with a lot of awkward dancing from gorgeous models) to view that mural in full, complete with hydrangeas, roses and morning glories growing up a tree.



Where is that awesome muralled room? It's Castello Sonnino, in Tuscany. While we're gathering trivia, the music is by a long defunct Greek 80s band called Alive She Died. Although the most extraordinarily botanical suit in the range is visible neither in the ad above nor in the runway show, Gucci took their model circus to Berlin, where the flowers could flash against the concrete, and gave it a starring role:


The bit where the model goes off the skateboard on the corner is priceless.

I might skip the gold foil skirt, but clashing multicolour florals sound like a good way to go in the garden this year; I like the contrast with the concrete chip rooftop (rather more than the elegance of the faded villa) and the cartoonish, outsized blooms; the self-consciously overdressed, over-the-top and over-the-rainbow garden.