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How to Fake the Gucci Look, in Several Equations

I will be a Gucci girl and I will pay no more than thirty dollars, dammit.

By Rebecca Jennings Sep 14, 2016, 11:32am EDT

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As an unrich, unskinny, and uncool person who does not possess the motivation required to change any of those things, I have always understood that fashion does not care about me.

And nor should it, honestly. I come from a state so irrelevant to the country’s economy that we didn’t even have a Target. Vermonters are not swindled into buying impractical items easily, unless it’s some form of extravagant hiking gear that will live untouched in our garages for decades. Which is to say, why would I spend hundreds of dollars on a shirt that I can’t wear a bra with, when wearing a bra is kind of a must for me?

This "why pay attention if I can’t afford it?" attitude has been so wholly internalized that during my interview for this very publication, I admitted that I was uninterested in "high fashion" and didn’t want to write about it. (This was probably very stupid of me; if you are an aspiring fashion writer, maybe don’t do that.)

But my "cerulean sweater" moment, to use a Devil Wears Prada-ism, was Alessandro Michele’s Gucci. In the words of the New Yorker, his garments are "as if they had been culled from a thrift store to which centuries of Roman princesses had consigned their most extravagant castoffs." In the words of me, they prove I was right about the rule "take off one accessory before you leave the house," in that this rule is dumb and lame.

Do you want to wear a beret that will fall off your head with one gust of wind, and pair it with athletic socks? Very logical, according to Michele. Are you concerned that your outfit contains too much of the color aqua? More like not enough aqua. Do you have a strong feeling that your outfit makes you look like a huge couch? To borrow a phrase from a slightly out-of-touch teenager, that's Gucci.

The obvious problem here is that dresses covered in sequins and embroidered silk bomber jackets are fantastically expensive. And one piece — be it a sequin dress, a whimsical hat, or a fur cuff — does not the Gucci look make. Instead, it’s about curation (stay with me): the pairing of two or three curious items that have the power to Gucci-fy even the most minimal of outfits.

Here, a few non-mathematical equations involving accessories at non-Gucci prices that will do just that.