Gucci Cosmogonie Looks to the Sky for Answers
Alessandro Michele's Cruise 2023 collection for Gucci was a lesson in the stars.
Translated from French, "cosmogonie" or "cosmogony" refers to the study or the history of the universe—a lofty goal that only a designer like Alessandro Michele would take on as the theme of his latest Gucci collection.
Michele was inspired by the work of Walter Benjamin, a 20th-century German philosopher who fled Germany in the 1930s. Benjamin was "a collector of quotations" who enjoyed healthy debates with fellow intellectuals including his friend Hannah Arendt who paid homage to her late friend in an essay after his death in the 1940s.
"If any thinker was able to keep together things that were so distant in time and space, rearticulating them into bursting constellations, it was Walter Benjamin. To this man, who couldn’t survive without his quotations, my gratitude," said Michele.
Set around the historic Castel del Monte in Andria, Italy, Gucci's signature penchant for quirk and glamor dichotomized the marble fortress's formidable exterior. The colorful creations of Gucci's Cruise 2023 collection embodied a fusion of French and Italian styles, glossed over with Michele's whimsical paintbrush.
And it's not a Gucci show without a few (or an entire front row of) celebrity attendees. Major friends of the house including Dakota Johnson, Elle Fanning, Jodie Turner-Smith, Måneskin, Mark Ronson, Paul Mescal, and Lana Del Rey were all present to light up the Italian night sky with their stardom.
