Fiat 500 by Gucci

Director Chris Sweeney Celebrates the Italian Fashion House’s New Twist on an Automotive Icon

High heels, handbags and perfume bottles are transformed into a steering wheel, car exhaust and wheel rims by a vacuum-forming machine in director Chris Sweeney’s short for the new Fiat 500 by Gucci. Originally launched in 1957, the latest iteration of the doe-eyed classic has been specially customized by Gucci’s Creative Director Frida Giannini, who enhanced the Fiat 500’s distinguishing traits and added the fashion house’s signature detailing via a signature red-green web down the side and the unmistakable “Guccissima” leather print on the seats. Invited alongside visionaries such as Italian Vogue's Franco Sozzani and Purple’s Olivier Zahm to dream up a film celebrating the partnership between the Italian automaker and fashion house, Sweeney created a giant plastic model kit of the Fiat 500 by Gucci like the ones he used to make as a kid. “It’s an extreme, austere fashion version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or Wallace and Gromit, which are very playful, silly, colorful and magic,” explains Sweeney of his film. An established music video director who has made shorts for the likes of Foals, Friendly Fires and original Pop Idol Will Young, the London-based Sweeney’s graphic rhythms have been sought by luxury brand YSL, hairstyling prodigy Charlie Le Mindu and fashion titles Vogue and i-D. “The Fiat 500 is a car that everyone holds close to their hearts,” says Sweeney. “It’s an icon of design.”