In a 13th-century Puglian castle, the fashion house’s creative director would rather think about magic and the universe than party clothes for the rich
There is a philosophy class on the Harvard curriculum this semester, under associate professor Emanuele Coccia, called The Ego in Things: Fashion As a Moral Laboratory. The syllabus, which examines the role of fashion in shaping identity and illustrating culture, includes an essay by the late designer Virgil Abloh, and an episode of The Simpsons made in collaboration with Balenciaga, but particular focus is given to Alessandro Michele, the creative director of Gucci. This week Michele, who recently attended the Met Gala twinning with Jared Leto, right down to matching diamante hair barrettes, showed his latest collection, Cosmogonie, at a 13th-century Puglian castle. The influences he cited were not the usual style references – Audrey Hepburn, say, or Cristóbal Balenciaga – but Hannah Arendt, the Holocaust survivor and political theorist who coined the phrase “the banality of evil”, and critical theorist Walter Benjamin.
Eight hours before showtime Michele, who is Coccia’s co-author on a forthcoming book about fashion and philosophy, is dressed down in a plaid shirt, loose trousers and sandals, long hair in Pippi Longstocking braids under a Harlem baseball cap. As reporters rustle their notebooks, he snaps open a paper fan, Karl Lagerfeld-style. “To be a fashion designer now is not to be a couturier,” he says. “My job is not to make a rich woman a dress for a gala. My job is to open the door to different points of view, to be in conversation with the moment.”
It is heartfelt, although not strictly true. Michele’s job is very much to make dresses for rich women to wear to galas – even if those dresses, like the ones in the show that will be staged later that evening, feature belly button cutouts, or Elizabethan satin ruffs, or are worn with latex thigh-high boots or leopard-print bucket hats. For the Gucci bosses, the motivation behind the extravagantly picturesque setting is in the orders placed by the big spenders in the front row, and the buzz generated around the brand. But for Michele, the setting has a deeper meaning. He is bringing his sequins, lace and pearls to the octagonal towers of the Castel del Monte (which also features on the back of a euro cent coin) – where two stone lions at the entrance face the directions from where the sun rises on the winter and summer solstices – in order to talk about the universe.
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