Gucci brought celestial beauty to the runway with “Cosmogonie” collection.
For the luxury label’s latest cruise collection, creative director Alessandro Michele looked at the cosmos for inspiration. Heavenly bodies graced Gucci’s 2023 cruise runway show as Alessandro Michele designed a collection inspired by the constellations.
The runway show was held at the historic Castel del Monte in Andria, Italy, a historical location that Alessandro Michele hold dear.
Entitled “Cosmogonie,” (referring to the study and history of the universe), the brand took inspiration from constellations, showcasing garments with details referencing the stars and magical myths. Moreover, in his notes on the Gucci Cosmogonie show, the creative director paid homage to Hannah Arendt and Walter Benjamin, the latter of whom was a collector of quotations: “He discover them (quotations) from the depths of the sea and he brings them back on the surface of the water as rare and precious pearls. He resembles them like shreds of thoughts that need to be recomposed, reconstructed, updated.”
“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.
Mystical encounters and mythological places – it is all written in the stars. For this Cruise 23’, Michele gathered elements that are at first sight seem atomized and dispersed, but come an assembly of complicity – “a connective structure that lights up the darkness through the epiphany of constellation.”
In addition, the creative director introduced poetic colours, silhouettes and references into the collection, highlighting that there are no rules when it comes to dressing up. He also introduced new patterns, retro-inspired boots, transparencies and tailoring, and sequins to “make clothes shine”, said Alessandro.
“I’ve been pondering a lot about what it means to be a fashion designer today, in 2022. It’s no longer about imagining a dress for a particular woman or for a specific event. Today, making a collection is about assembling a succession of images, colours, shapes, attitudes or faces. The creative process is difficult to explain. It remains very mysterious.” Alessandro said.
The collection also featured long velvet dressed embroidered with sequins and with evocative cuts and short black dresses worn with laced thigh-high boots and feathered opera gloves. There were also 1940s silhouettes – large capes and elegant suits evoking Greta Garbo – and long chiffon-draped evening gowns embroidered with flashy sequins accompanied of luxury brand, were front and centre, with handbags inspired by jewellery boxes, ballerina shoes in shiny varnish and clustered jewellery charms.