5 things to know about Gucci Cosmogonie

The Cosmogonie Resort collection presented yesterday by Gucci has all the air of being one of those shows that flirts unceremoniously with much-needed hype and engagement. If you then throw in stars, constellations and the moon the result could literally be translated into the formula the show that broke the internet. Indeed, Alessandro Michele brought to the stage a transcendental (rather than historical) revision of clothes that awakened a naïve (but healthy) form of general enthusiasm among insiders and followers of the Kering brand.

1. The reference to Tom Ford

That Alessandro Michele is a creative director willing to quote and play with his brand's heritage (and beyond) is a matter almost entirely taken for granted. This time, one of the references was directly aimed at Tom Ford, Gucci's creative director from 1994 to 2004, and the aesthetic imagery of porn chic: nudity, more or less veiled sexiness, and bodies exuding sensuality from every single pore. Although reinterpreted in a more intellectual and mystical key, Alessandro Michele's erotic chic was an interesting experiment in restoring a phenomenon that was a protagonist of the editorials of the early 2000s.

2. It is a reservoir of micro-trends

Gucci's appeal remains sacrosanct and inviolable to the most studied and idealized generation ever, the very Gen Z to whom Alessandro Michele has once again chosen to refer, setting up a collection teeming with micro-trends: from the prominence of elbow-length gloves to cut-out cuts to the reinterpretation of denim. Historical revisionism and quotations ranging from the Middle Ages to the contemporary culminate in the glamour of shimmering fabrics, capes and optical prints.

3. The repositioning of the logo

In the eternal struggle between millennials and Gen Z over the meaning of logomania, Alessandro Michele decided to dispense with logos and lettering with Cosmogonie. Cautiously displaced on bags and accessories, the logo appears perfectly modeled on a model's haircut. In 2003 Tom Ford had smeared it on model Carmen Kass's pubic hair as part of a fashion campaign that went down in history, SS03. The intent is probably the same: to reappropriate the aesthetic heritage of his own brand.

4. The Great Return of Lana del Rey

Absent from Gucci's shows for years, Lana Del Rey has reappeared on the brand's ambassador scene alongside Maneskin, Dakota Johnson, Elle Fanning and the huge parade of star celebrities that accompanies each of the brand's shows. Alessandro Michele thus reappropriated his semantic imagery by landing the U.S. singer, formerly the face of Gucci for the 2019 Guilty campaign alongside Jared Leto, now a loyal follower of Michele, in Italy.

5. The show was conceived as a rave

While choosing a medieval setting such as the Castello del Monte, Gucci's creative director thought of celebrating the medieval magic that envelops the location, conceiving of it as a kind of Silicon Valley of time and consequently depriving it of silence. He went on to explain that fashion has to do with humanity in general, as if one «is at sea, in the ocean, and to decide not to take someone or something into consideration would not be right at all.»