La Rose des Vents, the beach club on Larvotto Beach in Monaco, is covered in flowers this summer. Not real ones, although there are some of those too, courtesy of a floral installation by Belgian artist Mark Colle. The sun loungers, the parasols, the towels, the tableware, even a bicycle parked at the entrance, all carry Gucci’s Flora print, in the same pinks, greens and reds the house has used since the motif’s creation. The takeover began in May and runs through October. On June 6, Gucci hosted a gathering at the club to mark the launch, and the club has continued drawing attention since. During the Monaco Grand Prix weekend, La Rose des Vents pulled in figures from sport and culture, including skier Lindsey Vonn.
Source: Instagram / @gucci
Where Floral Print Actually Comes From?
The story behind the print is older and more specific than most brand collaborations bother to be. In 1966, a young woman walked into Gucci’s boutique in Milan looking for a silk scarf. She would soon become Princess Grace of Monaco, but at that point she was still better known by her previous name: Grace Kelly.
Source: Pinterest / kering.com
Rodolfo Gucci commissioned illustrator Vittorio Accornero to design something for her, a composition of 37 distinct flowers rendered across silk. That scarf became Flora, and Flora became one of the most enduring patterns in the house’s history, reappearing across six decades of collections in different colourways and forms. This year, the motif turns 60. Returning it to Monaco, the place where its story began, is not incidental. It is the most direct way Gucci could connect a 2026 marketing campaign to a piece of its own history that happens to be true.
Part of a Bigger Shift on the Riviera
Gucci’s takeover is not happening in isolation. This summer, a number of fashion houses have applied the same logic to beach clubs across the Mediterranean. Jacquemus took over Mandarin Oriental Bodrum’s Blue Beach in Turkey, extending its stripes to paddleboards and backgammon sets. Missoni transformed the largest pool at OKU Ibiza into a mosaic of its signature zigzag. Dior and Burberry have run their own resort takeovers elsewhere on the coast.
The shared idea is the same: rather than waiting for a wealthy clientele to wear the brand on holiday, the brand now builds the holiday itself. A beach club takeover photographs well, lasts months rather than a single show, and turns an ordinary stretch of sand into a backdrop that does the brand’s marketing simply by existing. Gucci’s version of this strategy extends beyond Monaco. Alongside La Rose des Vents, the house has built out resort assortments and destination experiences in Forte dei Marmi, Porto Cervo, Capri, Ibiza, Mykonos, Formentera, Saint-Tropez and Cannes, an entire summer itinerary stitched together by the same aesthetic.
Why Monaco Specifically
What separates Gucci’s Monaco project from the others is that it isn’t inventing a connection between the brand and the location. The connection already existed. Grace Kelly’s relationship with Monaco, and by extension Gucci’s relationship with Monaco through her, predates every marketing department currently working on this campaign. A beach club covered in Gucci flowers is, on its own, a fairly ordinary piece of summer activation. A beach club covered in the exact pattern commissioned for the woman who would become the Principality’s princess, on the beach of that same Principality, sixty years after she first asked for it, is a different thing entirely. It is brand heritage that happens to also be historically accurate.
Source: Instagram / @gucci
Source of image: La Rose Des Venues
