Just weeks after Alessandro Michele made Dakota Johnson his Gucci Bloom muse, the creative director has cast her grandmother, the legendary model, actress and Hitchcock inspiration, Tippi Hedren, in the brand's latest campaign. The new face of Gucci's timepieces and jewellery, Hedren stars in a series of photographs and a video laced with Lynchian surrealism.
Hedren cut her teeth in the '50s working as a successful model before acting in her most recognised role as Melanie Daniels in Alfred Hitchcock's haunting 1963 film The Birds. Tippi, whose career is often – and unfairly – defined by her working relationship with Hitchcock, spoke out in October last year in the wake of the #MeToo movement. Comparing the Psycho director to disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein, she said of the allegations of abuse: "This is nothing new."
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Just as Dakota (and Tippi's daughter, Working Girl and Lolita actor Melanie Griffith) followed in her grandmother's footsteps by forging a career in the film industry, Tippi now joins Dakota as one of Alessandro Michele's Gucci girls.
The new campaign, shot by photographer Colin Dodgson, sees Tippi as a glamorous yet disarming fortune teller, with a subtle nod to Twin Peaks' Log Lady. Sat 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.
She wears a Gucci dress covered in exotic botany and tiger's eye prints, topped with a bejewelled mandarin collar. Her poisoned-apple-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 [jewellery] collections, and the G-Frame and G-Timeless timepieces," WWD reports.
At 88 years of age, Tippi joins a wave of older stars fronting fashion campaigns in recent years. The literary legend Joan Didion brought her signature bob to Céline, while '70s folk beauty Joni Mitchell graced Hedi Slimane's Saint Laurent campaign, both for SS15. With Alessandro Michele's undeniable status in the industry – having transformed Gucci into the eccentric but incredibly profitable brand it is today – here's hoping other brands take heed and bring more age diversity into the future faces of fashion.