Azediized
Unless you’re Japanese and/or a fan of mangas, I guess you’ve never heard about Hirohiko Araki. Let me introduce you to this incredible man.
Hirohiko Araki is mangaka principally known for his series “Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure” which talk about the adventures of the Joestar family. The story covers several generations with always a member of the Joestar family as a principal protagonist. “What does it have to do with design and Gucci?” you will ask me. At that, I will answer: everything. If you read the manga, you will notice many references to music or artists but not only, you will se that the design of the clothes of the character are very particular. Indeed, Hirohiko Araki is passionate by mode and history and you can feel it by looking at the clothes he draws for his characters. When he wants to design a character, he just picks up a mode magazine and get inspired by what he finds in it, from the clothes to the pose and even named his characters after famous designers. One thing that really made his manga famous all around the world are the “Jojo Poses” that he uses for his characters and which are really inspired by the poses of models.
The inspiration Araki takes from the design industry is that big that he finally did a collaboration with a famous luxury brand that you certainly all know : Gucci. Indeed, for the Gucci 90th Anniversary coupled with Hirohiko Araki 30th Anniversary, the brand hired the mangaka who created an original story where the characters wore exclusively clothes and accessories from Gucci’s Collection. Not only representing all these Gucci accessories, Araki also managed introduce his own aesthetic that make it even more glamourous that if it was real models who were actually presenting the collection.
Out of this collaboration, Gucci really made profits because they managed show a new image of the brand and make it even more fashionable and attractive thanks to Araki, but in the same time they also reduce costs since they do not have to pay any model or photographer to present their new collection. Indeed, instead of hiring a lot of people to take photos, make up the models and not have to prepare a defile, Gucci managed to make a lot of money, knowing that the original story that Hirohiko Araki wrote for them made them a great advertising. We can see that by this operation Gucci is creating value out of Human resources and Marketing and Promotion of their collection. It is a financial value of design. We can also talk about a learning and transformation value, since the brand used a whole new strategy to make its publicity.
Making sense of art and design industries 