The CURATION Of: 'Gucci Cosmos', 180 Studios
Visited 16/12/2023
The ‘Gucci Cosmos’ exhibition, at 180 Studios.
‘Gucci Cosmos’ at 180 Studios is not an exhibition on the history of Gucci as a fashion house. It is instead a showcase of the ideas and inspiration that formed the aesthetic of the fashion house throughout its 100 year plus journey. Clothes, accessories and objects are taken from the archives and displayed within brilliant exhibition design by Es Devlin. So brilliant, in fact, that this exhibition comes across more like a presentation of Devlin’s visionary work than one of Gucci’s collection. I am unsure whether it is a case of minimal access to the Gucci archives, or if it was simply poorly curated, but unfortunately what is on show at 180 Studios is scarce and incoherently grouped. With that being said, exhibition immersion does not get much better than at ‘Gucci Cosmos’.
Gucci was founded by Guccio Gucci (1881-1953) in Florence, 1921, starting off as an artisanal leather goods shop. As a teenager, Guccio worked as a porter boy for Savoy Hotel in London, handling the luxury luggage and fashionable materials of the high-end hotel’s wealthy clients. Inspired and full of knowledge, Guccio gradually understood what was necessary to start his own line of products.
Entering the building, we step into a hotel lobby style waiting room with historical furniture and photographs of Florentine attractions on the walls. Once everyone in our booked time slot arrived, a staff member briefed us on Guccio Gucci’s early career at as a porter and allowed us to enter a large red elevator, strongly reminiscent of The Savoy’s very own Ascending Room. We step into the mind of Guccio who frequented this transitory space uncountable times, while also beginning the exhibition in an unusual but completely natural immersive manner. The exhibition will refer back to this red colour multiple times as it forged into the brand’s identity.
These first rooms are separated by revolving doors, extending the hotel immersion once more. Different styles of Gucci bags and luggage rotate on a conveyor belt, showing them in their typical use case environment. These luxurious products originate within a global travel setting and their quality, aesthetic and practicality are all emphasised. Maximising the space, suitcases in a ‘conceptual white’ fill the gaps on the conveyor belt, perhaps to show early Gucci as an evolving blank canvas, perhaps as placeholders for future designs, or maybe because not enough pieces from the archives were available. Either way, I personally find it to be quite a shame, especially since the bags on display here are not necessarily all early designs, such as the Gucci x Donald Duck bags released in 2020.
A corridor displays a timeline highlighting the creations of the fashion brand’s famous logos, products, and influence in popular culture. A circular room called Zoetrope which plays a flashing video installation of a galloping horse is aptly named. In the slits against the walls are designs that were inspired directly from equitation accessories. Elements such as the Horsebit, the Web, the stirrup, and the horseshoe all became classic motifs of Gucci. In the early years, Guccio produced saddles and other leather accessories for horsemen, and later, products such as the Horsebit loafer (introduced in 1953) solidified a distinguished brand heritage. Combining functionality and elegance was fundamental to the Gucci brand. Jumping from the animal kingdom to the plant kingdom, Eden pays homage to the iconic Flora motif created in 1966 by Italian artist Vittorio Accornero de Testa. This design was first seen on a silk scarf gifted to Princess Grace of Monaco. Pieces on display here carry highly decorative floral patterns, accentuated by the white set. By referencing nature, Gucci reflects their unique recognition of seasonal changes in fashion and their service to cosmopolitan travel.
A huge mirrored installation of floating giants introduce the second half of the exhibition. There is an interesting lightness to the figures who appear to exist intergalactically. Projected onto them are men’s and women’s suits designed under Gucci in recent decades. What we are seeing is a larger than life interaction between body and clothing and how each one defines and elevates the other. This installation to me was particularly mesmerising, yet as I said earlier is also probably the best example of how this exhibition connected us to the immersive experience of Es Delvin more than the excitement of Gucci’s unveiled archives.
And here we can see an extensive archive collection… of cardboard boxes. But no in all seriousness, handbags - Gucci’s most encapsulating object - are carefully selected and displayed behind glass cases. Variations of their handbags, including the Jackie, Diana and Horsebit, decorated with iconic features such as bamboo, the GG monogram, the recurring deep red colour, or a combination of them all remind us that an archive is not only a place of conservation, but one of inspiration. Other objects such as silk scarves of intricate floral, bug, and animal designs wait to be discovered in drawers alongside images of promotional campaigns.
In a fun installation, curated pieces emerge and vanish in this mystery box. Outfits are created as clothing and accessories which compliment are revealed together. Unique, charismatic artefacts appear, such as an electric guitar, a golden deer, and a pair of mannequin hands holding a bejewelled heart. At this point, I must note of this exhibition’s obsession with repeatedly using cyclical visual sequences to present the objects. An emphasis on the immersive experience is perhaps too heavily placed. In attempting to show off Gucci’s collection, I feel that the installation spectacles instead outshine at every stop. So far removed from a still museum-esque display, I struggle to believe that Gucci’s aesthetic and cultural impact in the fashion world is at all prioritised in this exhibition. While themes and functionality are highlighted, it seems that this display of a ‘Gucci Cosmos’ is in actuality a fashion house lost in its own world.
We reach the beginning of an incredibly weak ending to this promising exhibition. A completely random collection of outfits adorn mannequins rotating on a carousel, expressing the breadth of Gucci design across a century and multiple creative directors. Unfortunately, visibility of the outfits is ruined by the also moving light projection of equally randomised subjects; houses, dragons, solar systems, gears and blades of grass to name a few. I see it as a sad confirmation of a lack of meaning and coherence throughout this exhibition, and an injustice to each individual design. It is as though they only have impact when viewed as a fleeting moment and are not to be seen in detail for long periods of time. Only bags and handbags were displayed proudly (in Portals and Archivio).
Back to where we started then, in a room filled with red. The final room recalls the manifesto of Gucci’s latest Creative Director, Sabato De Sarno. A video documentary plays, visualising De Sarnos' mood board with imagery and poetry. It is confusing and fragmented, but inspired by the word ‘Ancora’. Directly translated, the word means ‘still’ or ‘again’, though interpreted by De Sarno as ‘also now, also then’. With his first collection, he aims to evoke the emotion of wanting more out of what you already have, connecting past, present and future, thus encouraging one to find new expression from their current wardrobe, like how Gucci constantly refers back to their archives.
This exhibition was not the best depiction of Gucci’s tumultuous history, but rather a necessary rebrand of the longstanding fashion house, coinciding with the appointment of a new Creative Director. Adopting this trendy cherry red colour as the foundation of future Gucci, ‘Gucci Cosmos’ serves the primary role of a fashion exhibition focused on one specific brand - marketing the brand and generating excitement through accessibility to rare archive pieces, reminding us of its luxury and connecting with the public through a memorable experience. In the end, I quite enjoyed being in the presence of Devlin’s work, but remain largely unmoved in my perceptions of the Italian fashion house.
The next three reviews:
‘Antony Gormley: Body Politic’ exhibition, White Cube Bermondsey
‘Entangled Pasts, 1768-now’ exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts
‘Neil Stokoe’ exhibition, Saatchi Yates
Yaunt - an abbreviation of my Chinese name
Yaunt Gallery - the end goal