Much of the current ado about fashion has focused on the industry’s varying rapport with immediacy. Everyone, it seems, wants to be seen to be keeping up with the digital giants.

But, in its own way, fashion is reacting in quicker and nimbler ways than perhaps any other industry right now. Just look at the seismic changes that have taken place overnight at Loewe, Balenciaga, and, most significantly, Gucci. Houses that seemingly only months ago felt lacklustre have reinvented themselves as beacons of creative zeal and confidence.

In this issue of System, we’ve chosen to take a closer look at the trend for instant rebirth: what’s propelling it, why is it working, what’s the actual shelf life of the changes being made? And, tellingly, how are the individuals behind it reacting to fashion’s assignment du jour: reinvent everything. Immediately.

Depending on who you ask, Gucci’s creative director Alessandro Michele and CEO Marco Bizzarri are either staring down the barrel of a €4-billion gun, or having the time of their lives, empowered by the shared desire to transform the brand into a booming business synonymous with joy and colour, warmth and humility.

Ironically, only time will tell how Michele and Bizzarri navigate the industry’s new-found love of the instant brand revamp. Will the ‘revampers’ themselves become revamped? Or will they steer the ephemeral towards something that endures? In the meantime, our Gucci cover story (page 62) presents the Italian duo as diametrically opposed in appearance and character yet mutually admiring, and giving off an aura pitched somewhere between laidback and supremely confident.

Consider them fashion’s happiest couple.