Fashion label Gucci recently launched its Cruise 2024 collection at Seoul’s Gyeongbokgung Palace in an evening that brought Italian and South Korea design together and showcased the brand’s heritage.

Show guests included 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 in to oversee the whole production of the event.

With communications key to the smooth running of the event, Bureau Betak called Dasan SR, the South Korea 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 throughout the event.

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.

‘punQtum was chosen as it made a great solution to accompany the Riedel Bolero wireless, as it is also based on AES67, uses PoE to power the belt packs and is very easy to set up,’ says Dasan SR Application Engineer, David JooYoung Jeon. ‘With the Bolero being designated as a request, it was clear that we needed a wired communication that could be integrated seamlessly. This is what led us to punQtum. It was the perfect addition as it had the crucial advantages of working as a partyline without the need for a station.’

punQtum specialises in affordable communications for a range of projects and installations. Engineered in Switzerland and made in Europe, punQtum products offer a sophisticated centre of coordination – as was essential to the Gucci Cruise show.

Gyeongbokgung Palace, the location of the event, is a national cultural heritage centre, which meant that there were 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 grand structure complete with intricate façade that gives nod to East Asian symbolism, it was a catalyst for innovations in art, science and literature in South Korea. It was chosen by Gucci to be the venue for its Cruise 2024 fashion show because it embodied the past and present, much like the designs showcased across the evening.

In keeping with the Gucci ethos, aesthetics were 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 daisychained 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.

Further, a master station wasn’t required, which was 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.

‘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,’ JooYoung Jeon says. ‘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 a big reason why we chose punQtum. We were really happy with how the system performed and the outcome of the show.’

The system met the brief from start to finish. This was the first 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. Thanks to the help of punQtum, the Cruise 2024 launch was a celebration of multicultural style on one of the most historical stages in the world.