Back in May 2023, high-end fashion brand GUCCI celebrated the launch of its Cruise 2024 collection at Seoul’s iconic Gyeongbokgung Palace. The evening blended the innovative worlds of Italian and South Korean design and showcased the heritage of GUCCI, alongside the multicultural style found on the streets of the capital city.
The fashion show was attended by a star-studded line-up of guests, including Dakota Johnson, Liu Wen, Wen Qi, Mark Ronson and Gulf Kanawut. With a global reputation for world-class fashion and design, the production of the GUCCI show had to be flawless, so Parisian production company Bureau Betak was called upon to oversee the whole production of the VIP event.
In search of a high-quality communications system, Bureau Betak reached out to Dasan SR, the South Korean distributor for Riedel Communications. The brief from the client was for an easy-to-use, reliable system that would make coordination across the evening as seamless as possible. It was to be responsible for giving cues to models from the Head of Production, as well as assisting the video crew to assign cues from start to end.
Dasan SR suggested the use of a punQtum wired intercom system that would be subsequently integrated by the team at RHINO Sound – a Dasan SR company specialising in audio equipment hire and live sound production.
“The main communications system was Riedel Bolero, which uses AES67 as its means of communication between the antennas,” explains David JooYoung Jeon, Application Engineer at Dasan SR. “The Bolero system was deployed on an AES67-based PoE infrastructure, which meant the punQtum would be a great solution to accompany the Bolero wireless, as it is also based on AES67 and uses PoE to power the belt packs. With the Bolero being designated as a request, it was clear that we needed a wired communication that could be integrated seamlessly, which led us to punQtum.”
Gyeongbokgung Palace, the location of the GUCCI show, is a national cultural heritage centre, which meant that there were numerous limitations regarding the time given to set-up and the physical positioning of the hardware. Also, because of its historical nature, the team had to be extremely cautious about every aspect of the installation and deployment of the system.
The Palace was built in 1395 and served as the main royal residence of the Joseon Dynasty. A truly grand structure complete with an intricate façade that gives nod to East Asian symbolism, it became a catalyst for innovations in art, science and literature in South Korea, and, in its later years, also played host to a number of exhibitions. It was chosen by GUCCI to be the venue for its Cruise 2024 fashion show because of its embodiment of the past and present, much like the designs showcased across the evening.
In keeping with the GUCCI ethos, aesthetics were equally as important as the stability and reliability of the system. One of the main requests from the client was that no cables were to be seen by guests, so care was taken to ensure that they were minimised and hidden in the venue. Since the punQtum system can be daisy-chained up to a maximum of eight belt packs with the appropriate cables and PoE switch or supply, cabling didn’t pose a huge issue for the project team.
Furthermore, a master station wasn’t required, which was also helpful since all belt packs could communicate with each other independently, so connecting them through the communications network was the only thing needed for a seamless show.
JooYoung Jeon continues: “Since the network infrastructure was already set up by our team for the Bolero, all we needed to do was plug in ethernet cables from the network switch and run the Q-Tool. Q-Tool has a very straightforward user interface, with the ability to progressively set up each part of the system needed and then push in the settings to the network right away. This easy set-up of hardware and software was also a big reason why we chose punQtum.”
The result was a high-quality system that nailed the brief from start to end. This was the first ever fashion event held at Gyeongbokgung Palace and the evening highlighted the love and admiration for the GUCCI brand in South Korea. With the first GUCCI store opening in the city back in 1998, the Palace show was a full-circle moment for contemporary fashion in the East Asian capital city. With the help of Riedel and punQtum, the Cruise 2024 launch was a celebration of multicultural style on one of the most historical stages in the world.
