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Cosmogony (cos·​mog·​o·​ny) – 1: a theory of the origin of the universe, 2: the creation or origin of the world or universe.

Parsing allusions that traverse time and space, A#16 curator Alessandro Michele’s Cosmogonie collection for Gucci is a palimpsest of opulent remixes: transferring the conceptual anchor of Walter Benjamin’s wunderkammer of quotations and ideas into aesthetic form. His letters with fellow philosopher Hannah Arendt, her essays on life and further modern interpretations of their praxis are synthesized throughout, in metaphorical statements that render the intangible tangible.

Paraded hours after Monday’s Super Flower Blood Moon around the 13th century Castel del Monte in Puglia, an octagonal prism that has served at times as a hunting lodge or a prison, the collection (in all its complex historical nuance) merits examination and deconstruction, yet forms a statement greater than the sum of its parts.

The expression of this broad epistemological study materialises in transcendent motifs, ranging in eras and optics. Geometry and embroidery, at certain times, complement silhouettes from the 40s or a neon palette from the 80s, codified under the light of constellations traversing centuries, geographies, and languages. Gucci Cosmogonie is an immense parable, inextricably linking Walter Benjamin’s theories of multiplicity to the infinity of starlight emitted eons ago, recalling the past as fragments which constitute the present.

‘The light that bathes and illuminates us is older than the moment in which we live. It is the past of the star in front of us: a moment that escaped her and now becomes our present. Thanks to light, every moment is this strange heterochrony: the present of something is a past of another body.’ – Emanuele Coccia, Futura Proxima Curated For Gucci.