Just weeks after Alessandro Michele made Dakota Johnson his Gucci Bloom muse, the creative director has cast her grandmother, legendary model, actress, and frequent Alfred Hitchcock collaborator Tippi Hedren, in the brand's latest campaign. The new face of Gucci's timepieces and jewelry, Hedren stars in a series of photographs and a video laced with Lynchian surrealism.
The campaign, shot by photographer Colin Dodgson, sees Hedren as a glamorous yet disarming fortune teller, with a subtle nod to Twin Peaks' Log Lady. Seated at a silk cloth-covered table adorned with crystals, she reads the palms of models Emily Unkles, Victoria Schons, Tom Atton Moore, and Tex Santos-Shaw while wearing a Gucci dress covered in exotic botany and tiger's eye prints, topped with a bejeweled mandarin collar. Her red manicured hands rest on a crystal ball, displaying an eclectic mix of pieces including "Gucci Ouroboros, GG Running, and Le Marché des Merveilles fine [jewelry] collections, and the G-Frame and G-Timeless timepieces," WWD reports.
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Hedren cut her teeth in the '50s working as a successful model (she covered Glamour and Life magazines) before acting in her most recognized role as Melanie Daniels in Hitchcock's 1963 film The Birds. Hedren, whose career is often — and unfairly — defined by her working relationship with the director, spoke out in October of last year in the wake of the #MeToo movement. Comparing Hitchcock to Harvey Weinstein, she said of the allegations of abuse: "This is nothing new."
Just as Johnson (and her mother, Working Girl and Lolita actor Melanie Griffith) followed in her Hedren's footsteps by forging a career in the film industry, Hedren now joins Johnson as one of Michele's Gucci girls. At 88 years old, Hedren is part of a wave of older stars fronting fashion campaigns in recent years: In 2015, literary legend Joan Didion brought her signature bob to Céline, while '70s folk beauty Joni Mitchell fronted an ad for Saint Laurent.
With Michele's undeniable status in the industry — having transformed Gucci into the eccentric and incredibly profitable brand it is today — here's hoping other labels continue to bring more age diversity into the future faces of fashion.